The Appalachian Chronicles: Shades of Gray, Page 3

  Chapter II

  10:20 am

  The trail split about a quarter of a mile from camp. We took the fork that led to the highway and soon heard cars passing. A few minutes later we were walking on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We began hitching for a ride, and about six cars passed before two guys in a blue, four-wheel drive pick-up truck stopped. The man on the passenger side rolled down his window. He scratched the whiskers on his unshaven face and asked, “Where ya headin?”

  “We were up on the ridge and saw a reenactment going on in the valley over there.” I explained and pointed in the general direction.

  “That where ya wanna go?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Hop in. Going right by there.”

  “Thanks,” I replied. Then we took off our packs, set them in the back of the truck and climbed in. Both of us sat up near the cab, Max with his back against the fender on the driver’s side. I sat on the opposite side. I got comfortable and noticed Confederate battle flag stickers on either side of the back window.

  The driver pulled the truck onto the highway and his passenger turned around and opened the sliding window. “Take what ya want,” he said as he passed a flimsy blue bag through the window. “We got em at the over-stocked vendor of excess,” he added, and he then laughed at his own clever comment. The bag was filled with oranges, apples and bananas. The passenger then handed us a couple of soft drinks and apologized for not having any beer. “We don’t start drinkin till after lunch,” he said. He smiled and held up a plastic soft drink bottle wrapped with a fake beer label that was intended for a twelve-ounce can. Slightly amused, I assumed that he also had a fake soda label that he wrapped around his beer.

  Max looked at me and smiled. “Trail magic,” he said.

  I pulled an orange from the bag and handed it to Max; he took out an apple, stuck it in his pocket and handed the bag back to the passenger. “Thanks,” said Max.

  The passenger nodded and said, “Just knock if ya want anything else. Gotta a whole bag full of junk food, too.” He smiled again and closed the window.

  Max and I twisted the tops off our drinks and watched foam spray out from the beneath the cap. We motioned “cheers” to each other, lifted the bottles to our mouths and took a few gulps.

  “Boy that tastes good,” I said, “even if it’s not beer.”

  Max looked at his watch. “It’s still morning, what do want with a beer?”

  “I don’t know. Guess I shouldn’t complain, though.”

  “Not when it’s free,” said Max.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Max took off his jacket, balled it up and tucked it into the corner of the truck bed between the cab and the fender. He laid his head back and closed his eyes. We were rolling slowly along through the Blue Ridge Mountains. I sat there sipping my soda as muffled music played loudly inside the truck. The tune was familiar southern rock, but I could not recall the words or the artist.

  A few minutes later the driver turned onto a gravel road. Max looked up, sipped his drink and laid his head back down after he realized we had turned off the parkway. We wound slowly down a steep grade as a white cloud of dust eddied out behind the truck. The road leveled a bit and the dust settled. We were beneath a canopy of hardwoods and hemlocks. The hardwoods were mostly tulip poplars and maples, with a few scattered oaks and hickories. The hemlocks, especially those with trunks more than a few inches thick, were dead or dying. Many of the smaller ones were under attack, too. I didn’t know how the parasite had come to the Appalachian’s, but it reminded me of the blight that had destroyed the American Chestnut, many years before I first visited the mountains.

  We rounded a hairpin turn, the truck bumped a couple of times, and I heard mud splatter inside the wheel wells. Looking past Max, I saw water cascading, from side to side, down the mountain, wrapping around the surface of some rocks while splattering off of others.

  “Wet weather spring?” I wondered.

  I looked at the moist rocks in the cascade and the dryer ones nearby that were speckled with lichen and moss. Dead trees were lying here and there across the stones. Young ferns were growing in boggy spots along the edge of the water – the tips of their stems were still curled tight. Tiny purple violets added dabs of inviting color. The scene was framed with lush spring foliage, new shoots and youthful leaves, and illuminated by the translucent blue background of the morning sky and the occasional beam of sunlight that pierced through the trees.

  These shaded nooks and crannies, sometimes called hollows, are what I like most about the mountains. I believe I could selfishly build a cabin at that spot or one like it and quietly live out the remainder of my days. When I looked at the dense foliage and cascading waters behind us, it became clear that I had grown content with the relative solitude of our journey. During our thru-hike attempt the time spent alone, whether wandering through the ever changing scenery or lying quietly at night, had enabled me to relax in a way that can only be experienced after spending weeks away from the frantic pace of modern life. As I sat reflecting, I suddenly found the prospect of encountering hundreds of people in a strange place far less appealing. For a moment, I questioned the wisdom of my insistence on taking a detour and sensed that I better understood Max’s reluctance to join me.

  The music from within the cab suddenly grew louder and the idyllic scene faded as we rounded a bend in the road. I recognized the tune as “Southern Man”, a Neal Young classic; but before I could start silently singing along an empty plastic bottle went spinning end over end as it flew down the embankment. The music faded in proportion to the tension building in my jaw – I despise litter.

  “Jerk,” I said loudly, partly hoping to be heard, partly hoping not.

  Max looked up. “What’s that?”

  At the same moment the brakes locked on the truck and the tires locked and spewed gravel across the dusty road.

  Max jerked his head at me and asked, “What’d you say?”

  I raised my finger to my mouth, looked into the cab and saw the driver wrestling with the gearshift. As the wheels spun and the truck began to roll backward, I heard raised voices inside the cab. The truck rolled back about fifty yards before the passenger opened the door. Over the music we heard him say, “You’re a regular environmentalist, ya stupid, no count redneck. Since when de hell do you care if I throw a bottle out da winda.”

  “Since we’re not parked in your yard. You know damn well I can’t stand looking at garbage all over the place. I’m not letting you turn the Jefferson National Forest into a dump. And where do you get off calling me a redneck?”

  The passenger disappeared as he worked his way back and forth down the embankment. A moment later he was trudging up the hill with his retrieved litter in hand. He tossed the bottle in the back of the truck and said, “You guys mind watchin that? My righteous friend in there, he’s suddenly flicted with environmentalism.”

  I grunted and nodded my head.

  “Says he ain’t no redneck. Den what da hell is he hangin out with me for?”

  When the door was closed Max and I turned away from the cab and laughed out loud.

  “Where is the guardian of the beautiful mountains when you need him?” asked Max.

  “Guardian of the beautiful mountains – what’s that suppose to mean?”

  Max grinned and said, “You’ll figure it out one day.”

  “Trail fever, Max?”

  “No.”

  We came to the intersection at the edge of the access road; the driver turned left and meandered down the mountain. The woods opened up into a narrow valley where we began to see cars parked on both sides of the road. We also passed several men dressed in the gray uniforms of the Confederate Army and a pair of women dressed in hoop skirts.

  “This ought to be interesting,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened to all the cannon fire?”

  “Battle’s over,” Max replied.

  Our driver f
ound a spot along the road and parked the truck. Max and I climbed out the back, and the two guys inside the cab got out.

  The driver attempted to ask us a question, but his voice was drowned-out by the roar of a fleet of approaching motorcycles. Our heads moved back and forth as we watched each one pass. American flags attached to the handlebars and the back of the lead bike fluttered in the wind. Moments later, when the sound faded, the driver of the blue truck asked, “Want to put your gear inside?”

  “No thanks, we’re not sticking around long,” replied Max. “By the way,” he added, “let us pay you for the sodas and fruit.”

  “No, it’s on us,” the driver insisted.

  “Well then, thanks.”

  “See ya around,” said the driver.

  “Thanks,” I said.