Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [25]
The door slammed. Snapper was gone, and I was alone.
Feeling very uncertain, I removed the heavy, wet pack from my back and edged toward the woodstove in the center of the room.
I had almost regained feeling in my fingers when the back door creaked open. Snapper reappeared with a taller, slightly less sinister man in tow.
“Hey there,” he said. “Welcome to Standing Bear, I’m Curtis.”
“Cur-tis?” I asked.
“Yeah, Curtis. Here, let me show you around the place.”
I was still cold and wet, and I didn’t want to leave the warmth of the woodstove, but I reluctantly followed.
Curtis showed me the surrounding log shacks which housed the main sleeping quarters, a shower stall, laundry hut, and snack shed. During our tour, Curtis reassured me that Snapper helped him run the hostel, and although he could come across as a bit backwoods, he had a heart of gold. After our tour, Curtis walked me back to the bunkhouse. I now felt far more comfortable than when I had arrived.
Before leaving me by the woodstove where he’d found me, Curtis asked me where my home was.
“I’m from Hendersonville, North Carolina,” I answered.
“Hendersonville?” he said with surprise, then bluntly asked, “Well, then what the hell are you doing here?”
I was confused by his response, but then Curtis explained with a smile that Hendersonville was only an hour’s drive from the hostel. He suggested that, if I wanted to, I should call my parents and spend the night at home.
Home? I hadn’t intended to go home for five months, until after I reached the end of the trail, and at this point I had only been gone for two weeks. Going home felt like cheating. But the thought of my parents, my room, my clothes, and my bathtub led me to at least consider the option.
Curtis pointed me in the direction of the phone. I hesitantly dialed the number, and as soon as I heard my dad’s voice on the opposite end, I suddenly felt okay not spending the night at the hostel. Before I had even suggested the idea, my father asked me where I was and then turned his truck toward the Smokies.
My dad’s comforting voice was incentive enough to return home, but the mention of watching the University of North Carolina men’s basketball team play in the NCAA Final Four sealed the deal. Tar Heel basketball was a family tradition. In my mother’s opinion, the only thing more grievous than the fact that I would be in constant peril and out of touch for several months was that I was missing March Madness.
While I waited for my dad at the hostel, I decided to make the most of the surrounding shacks. I started with a load of laundry and then took one of the coldest showers of my entire life. I stood under the breath-stealing stream in the outdoor stall, with the temperature of the surrounding air somewhere just above thirty-two degrees. I thought that the water would have to warm up at some point, but I finally gave up mid-shampoo, my fingers blue and my body covered in goose bumps.
With soap suds still in my hair, I returned to the bunkhouse, where Snapper sat near the stove. Too cold for inhibition, I sat down directly beside him, as close to the fire as possible.
As my teeth slowed their violent clacking and my cold stiffness and social tensions began to ease, we began to talk.
“I’m glad you git to go home,” he said. “But it’s too bad it’s tonight.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“It’s Friday, so Mr. Curts take us to the Mexican restaurant. They’s got a real good bluegrass band on Fridays.”
A bluegrass band at a Mexican restaurant? That would be something to see!
“I’m sad that I’ll miss it,” I said. “Especially the food, I’m starving.”
In response, Snapper got up and left the room. Five minutes later he returned with some leftovers from the nearby Mexican restaurant.
“These’s from last night. Go ’head, e’t it,” he insisted.
Snapper watched proudly as I enjoyed his leftover tamales. And after I finally