The Madman Theory Read online

  Retwig frowned and sat up in his chair, but said nothing.

  “Actually,” said Kershaw, “it was dancing. Not that it makes any difference. They’re both done with the feet.”

  “Excuse me,” said Buck James. “I’m puzzled. You danced a hundred miles in two days? How was that? And why?”

  “It’s no mystery. I was a great dancer in my day. I entered the Dance-a-thon at the county fair. We figured the number of laps, counted extra for dipping, sliding, sashaying around, and came up with a hundred miles. We took second place—won twenty-five dollars. I was a real swinger in those days.”

  “Who came in first?” asked Buck mischievously. “Earl?”

  “Ha,” said Genneman.

  “No, sir. I don’t think Earl could cut the mustard. As I recall, a skinny little guy and a big fat dame won. They did the Charleston the last time around. If I’d had that female air-mattress to hold on to, I could have won myself.”

  Genneman set his beer glass down with a rap. “We’d better make up our packs and get going.”

  “The cabin is mine until two o’clock,” said Retwig. “We can work in there.”

  The group assembled in Retwig’s cabin. Genneman laid the food out on the bed: various parcels and envelopes of astonishing lightness. “Dehydrated food, the greatest invention of the century. Look at it: bacon, eggs, soup, hash, steak, vegetables, coffee. All we need is water. I used to hike in the days when a pack was a pack. Now everything is lightweight, and I like it. After you’ve carried an ounce ten miles, it weighs a pound.”

  Bob Vega looked at his suitcase uncertainly. “I brought a few extra clothes—”

  “Leave them. Every ounce counts.” Genneman noticed young James putting on a pair of Oxford-type work shoes with white rubber soles. He stared in amazement, eyebrows bushing out over his eyes. “Buck! You’re not planning to wear those things? You need boots.”

  “Not me. You don’t like weight hanging around your neck, I don’t like it on my feet.”

  “What if you sprain your ankle.”

  Genneman gave his head a quick decisive shake. “When you’re depending on your legs to get you into the mountains and out again, you don’t take chances.”

  “Everybody takes chances,” grinned Buck. “Kershaw might start dancing and fall into a lake. Nobody’s carrying life preservers.”

  “Let’s be serious,” snapped Genneman. “Spraining an ankle on a loose rock is a real danger. Since you don’t have any experience—”

  “I’ve walked here and there,” said Buck airily. “Look at these heels.”

  “The Sierras aren’t the Wisconsin woods. This is rough country!”

  Buck brought out the official park brochure. He read: “ ‘In the event of serious emergency, helicopters are usually available for rescue duty. In general, helicopters sent in to pick up persons for other than a life or death emergency must be chartered at the rate of one hundred and fifty dollars per eight hours.’ In other words, if I break my ankle, I don’t need to hold the rest of you up. Just send in the helicopter when you get back to civilization.”

  Genneman stared at Buck a long ten seconds. Then he turned away. “Don’t say you haven’t been warned.”

  “I’ve been warned all my life,” said Buck. “But I’m sane, healthy, practical, courageous—”

  Genneman forced a laugh. “One thing for sure, you’re articulate. I shouldn’t complain; who ever heard of a tongue-tied salesman?” Genneman turned away to make up his own pack, while Bob Vega shook his head in disapproval at Buck’s obstinacy over the boots.

  The five men took their packs to Genneman’s big white Buick station wagon, then went into the restaurant for lunch. “Eat hearty while you can,” said Genneman. “You’ll be doing your own cooking for a week.”

  “That I don’t mind,” said Red Kershaw. “But I’ll miss the candlelight and wine.”

  “What about the whisky and the gin?” asked Genneman. “Think you can stand it?”

  Kershaw rubbed his chin. “Be nice if one of you fellows cached liquor along the trail.”

  The crack appeared to amuse no one.

  “Just thought I’d ask,” said Kershaw.

  After lunch the five climbed into the Buick, and Genneman drove into the vast glacial gorge which was Kings Canyon. Granite cliffs reared over the road; peaks soared to a neck-craning altitude. Thirty miles from the lodge they passed the Cedar Grove Campground and Ranger Station; after another six miles the road ended at a turn-around and parking area. From this point trails led off into the High Sierra, to north, south, and east.

  Genneman parked and locked the car, and hid the keys inside a bumper-guard. Each man strapped on his pack, effecting a curious change in his appearance. Earl Genneman became a burly cinnamon bear; Retwig a finicky and fastidious gnome. With a white sweatshirt slung loosely over his pack-frame Buck James appeared more debonair than ever. Bob Vega walked about as if his feet hurt, while Red Kershaw seemed bemused by the astonishing set of circumstances which had brought him to his present predicament.

  Genneman pointed to the Forest Service sign which read: COPPER CREEK TRAIL. “There it is, me buckos. Take your last look at civilization. Anyone want to back out?”

  No one spoke, although Kershaw and Vega looked wistfully toward the station wagon.

  Genneman said in brassy good cheer, “Everybody champing at the bit, eh? Let’s get going while the mood lasts.”

  “Allons, mes enfants!” said Buck James.

  In single file the group marched up the Copper Creek Trail.

  For two hundred yards they walked across a dry meadow, in and out of the shade of towering cedars.

  The sun, almost directly overhead, drew forth odors of cedar, fir, tarweed and sage. Before the group had walked a hundred yards they began to perspire. Kershaw, behind Retwig, called ahead. “Hey, Earl, I’m dying of heat! This long underwear is frying me.”

  Genneman looked incredulously over his shoulder. “You’re not wearing it now!”

  “Certainly,” snapped Kershaw. “You gave instructions to keep the packs down; why carry something when you can wear it?”

  Retwig said, “If I were you I’d take it off. If you sweat too much you’ll get sick.”

  “I’ll do that,” said Kershaw. “Somebody relieve me of this pack.”

  Ten minutes later the group moved forward again. “It’s better,” said Red Kershaw. “But still not good. Somehow I’d pictured things differently. A pack horse with buckets of ice and champagne.”

  “Save your breath,” said Genneman. “Here’s where we start going up.”

  The trail veered against the mountainside and climbed by sweeps and switchbacks through patches of sun and scarcely less bright shade. Genneman and Retwig walked without effort. Red Kershaw wheezed and complained. Vega picked his way delicately, as if to spare his expensive new boots; Buck sauntered along in the rear.

  Genneman set an easy pace, and where the trail became steep he called rest-halts every hundred yards. “The first day is the worst,” he told the sweating Kershaw and Vega. “Don’t despair just yet.”

  “Look at the magnificent scenery,” Vega told Kershaw. “You won’t see anything like that at the race track.” And indeed, from where they sat they could see far up the valley, until interlocking spurs and ridges blurred into haze. “I’m enjoying every minute of this, Earl, though I had no idea we’d be climbing so fast.”

  “We’ll be going up the rest of the day and part of tomorrow,” said Genneman. “We’ll make Suggs Meadow tonight without any trouble.”

  Red Kershaw mopped his forehead with a red bandana handkerchief. “What do you keep staring at?” he asked young James. “You act as if something’s after you.”

  “It might well be. Ten minutes ago I saw somebody coming up the trail behind us. He should have passed us by now.”

  “You’re seeing things,” said Kershaw. “Those loose shoes drain the blood from your head.”

  “Except that I saw
him, too,” said Bob Vega. “Coming up the slope. A single man.”

  Genneman studied their back-trail. “Just one man?”

  “That’s all I saw,” said Buck James.

  “Damn unusual for a man to go camping by himself.”

  “I’ve done it,” said Myron Retwig. “And enjoyed it very much. It’s a completely different experience from going in a group.”

  “I can imagine,” said Kershaw. “There’s less bitching. More of nature’s music.” Wearily he rose. “I’ve been in some fantastic scrapes, but never did I expect to be performing like this. Who brought the whisky?”

  “Along about our fifth day we’ll pass Whisky Lake,” said Genneman with a grin. “Can you hold out till then?”

  “I might just camp there a while,” said Red Kershaw reverently.

  The group continued up the trail. It kept zigzagging in long curves up the mountain, tending always to the northeast and Dutchman’s Pass. The mountainside was barren, its underlying rock close to the surface; and now that the sun was westering, its light glanced off the slope instead of burning directly down. Back, forth, back, forth swung the trail, sometimes hacked into mountainside, sometimes built out on a rampart of stacked rocks.

  Resting in one of the infrequent patches of shade, Genneman turned to look down the slope. Almost a quartermile of trail lay in full range of vision. “You fellows were having hallucinations. There’s nobody behind us on the trail. Not unless he’s moving a lot slower than we are, which is hard to believe.”

  Buck shrugged; Bob Vega looked dubiously down toward the valley. “Where are we?” asked Vega.

  Retwig studied his topographic map. “As I see it, we’re here.” He indicated a spot with a pine needle.

  “In about half a mile we cross this stream. Suggs Meadow is another two miles.”

  They presently found themselves in a densely wooded canyon through which a small stream flowed. They drank and hurried on, now anxious to reach Suggs Meadow. The trail rose in a long slant, without switchbacks, finally breaking over a rocky ridge into a green meadow ringed by tall firs. The surrounding mountains were dark on the lower slopes; only the westward-looking peaks caught sunlight.

  “We’re the only ones here,” said Genneman. “It’s still pretty early in the season.”

  “Even in the middle of July you won’t find many backpackers on this trail,” said Retwig. “It’s too hard and too long.”

  “My aching back,” was Kershaw’s comment.

  They came down into the meadow, dropped their packs with relief, rubbed their shoulders where the straps had chafed. Half an hour later the plastic tube-tents had been set up, sleeping bags unrolled, air-mattresses inflated. Retwig appointed himself cook, to no one’s objection. He built a fire, arranged stones to support pots, set water to boiling, and presently from packets of unpromising appearance and insubstantial weight produced mushroom soup, stew, and coffee.

  Twilight darkened the meadow; the five men sat around the fire. Retwig smoked a pipe, Vega a pencil-thin cigar, Kershaw a cigarette. Neither James nor Genneman smoked. After a while the talk petered out, and Vega limped off to bed, followed by Kershaw and James. Genneman and Retwig sat by the fire half an hour longer. Finally Genneman rose, stretched. He went to the stream, brushed his teeth, washed his face. Returning to the fire, he stood looking around the meadow for a moment, then he went to bed, too, leaving Retwig by the fire. A half hour later Retwig followed suit.

  The fire became coals. It went dim.

  Time passed. The clearing was dark and quiet except for the sounds of sleep. The summer constellation passed overhead and dipped into the west. The crickets became still; there was complete silence.

  The eastern sky grew gray, the meadow light. Almost as the first red ray struck the mountaintops Myron Retwig emerged from his tent. He swung his arms briefly, dressed, and started a fire. Then he visited the stream, where he made his ablutions, and hauled water back to the fire. By the time he had deflated his air-mattress and rolled his sleeping bag, the water was boiling. He made himself a cup of coffee.

  Young James arose, then Genneman, then Bob Vega, and finally Red Kershaw, who complained of the temperature extremes of the mountains. “Either you roast or you freeze stiff. I don’t know which is worse.”

  “It averages out to absolute comfort,” Buck James told him.

  “That may be so,” Kershaw retorted, “but my skin can’t figure like that. And while I don’t consider myself a drinking man, a shot or two of good whisky does wonders toward improving the climate.” He rubbed the stubble of his chin. “Somebody was going to produce whisky, I forget just who. It’s like a dream . . .”

  “Here,” said Retwig, “have a cup of coffee. It’ll take your mind off your troubles.”

  They stood gratefully around the fire for a moment or two, then went down to the stream. When they returned Retwig had breakfast ready: chunks of compressed bacon, scrambled eggs, and applesauce. As they ate, Retwig pointed toward the south.

  “Somebody is camping just over the ridge. See the smoke?”

  Buck said, “You have good eyes. I can’t see it.”

  “It’s there. Just a wisp.”

  Genneman tossed the dregs of his coffee into the fire. “Let’s get moving. We want to make Persimmon Lake by evening.”

  “If it means walking, I’m against it,” said Kershaw. But he put on his pack good-naturedly enough, and presently the five men left Suggs Meadow.

  The trail once again rose, though in a somewhat gentler slope.

  At noon they reached a ridge which afforded a spectacular view over a great valley to the north. For a brief period after that the trail descended, then it cut back on itself and rose sharply toward Dutchman’s Pass. Lungs ached and hearts pounded in the thin cold air. Banks of snow lay on the granite slopes; immense peaks and harsh spires thrust into dark blue sky; it was impossible not to feel awe at the sheer elemental clarity of their surroundings.

  At two o’clock the trail slanted through Dutchman’s Pass across fields of snow blazing in the sunlight. At three it passed between a pair of astonishing needles of granite; from there it descended to Persimmon Flat, in the center of which lay Persimmon Lake, an irregular oval perhaps five hundred yards across. While camp was being set up Retwig tried the lake for trout; and in an hour he caught fourteen, which he fried for dinner. Afterward, as the group sat around the fire watching dusk reflected in the lake, even Red Kershaw acknowledged beneficial aspects to the situation. “I don’t say all this is making me a nobler man, but there sure aren’t many temptations to succumb to.”

  Bob Vega agreed wistfully. “I wonder what Lila is up to.”

  “You should have brought her along, if you can’t trust her out of your sight.”

  Vega smiled sadly. Earl Genneman said, “My daughter wanted to come. She’s a good hiker, too; she’d keep up with any of us.” He looked sidewise at Buck James. “What’s the trouble between you two? Don’t you want to marry the boss’s daughter?”

  Buck for once looked uncomfortable. “Oh—things will probably work themselves out. We’ve got a few differences of opinion.” He sat up, tossed a rock toward the lake. “Who’s for a swim?”

  Genneman refused to be sidetracked. “Such as what?”

  “One thing and another. She won’t live in Wisconsin.”

  “Nonsense,” declared Genneman. “She’s never mentioned that to me.”

  “Why don’t you send Bob here back to Madison? He has more experience; he’d be far more competent at running a new plant.”

  “Here!” protested Bob Vega. “I can’t go running back to Wisconsin. All my family, all my wife’s family lives in San Jose.”

  “Not to mention all your ex-wives and their families,” grinned Red Kershaw.

  “I couldn’t begin to think of moving to Madison,” declared Vega peevishly. And he told Buck: “It’s your hometown; you go.”

  Genneman surveyed Vega with his lids half-closed, so that he looked remar
kably like Josef Stalin. Then he turned to Buck, who flipped another rock toward the lake. “If all you’re worrying about is Jean, she’ll go to Wisconsin fast enough. She’d be a fool not to— and she’s no fool.”

  Buck glumly picked up another pebble.

  “It’s time for you to start knuckling down,” said Genneman. “You’ve had it too easy, Buck. Westco-Wisconsin is a challenge, but it’s also a real opportunity.”

  “No question of that. I’m not afraid of the job, and I know the territory. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “They don’t have things like this in Wisconsin.”

  “It won’t be forever. You get Westco-Wisconsin going well, keep your nose clean, don’t rob your future father-in-law, stay away from the goof-ball trade, and you’ll be sitting pretty.”

  “I realize this. I just wonder whether—well, whether I deserve it,” young James said lamely.

  ‘“Deserve it’?” Genneman’s roar of laughter shattered the dusk. “I never thought I’d see you become self-effacing. Well, well, well.”

  Retwig pointed with his pipe. “Look. Across the lake.”

  About two hundred yards off, a campfire flickered. Barely visible, a shape crouched beside the fire.

  Genneman jumped up, staring through the darkness. “I wish I’d brought my binoculars.”

  For half a minute he watched the orange flicker and the shape beside it. Then, slowly, he seated himself once more.

  Tonight no one was in a hurry to retire. The sky was absolute black, spangled with stars that reflected, star for star, in the mirror of the lake. “Yes,” said Genneman heavily, “sometimes you come up here to these mountains and it seems a crime to go back. You wonder which is the real world.”

  “Essentially,” said Retwig, “both are real worlds.”

  “We’d starve up here,” said Buck James shortly.

  “The world of nature here is a single world—I mean, all of us react to it in about the same way. But the other world—well, there are as many worlds as there are people. In the mountains we don’t have differences; in a sense, we’re all brainwashed by this environment. Down below we keep trying to force our world on one another. The result—” Retwig shrugged. “It’s better this way.”