Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [38]
The voice triggered a sense of recognition. I lifted my head and peered into the corner of the shelter.
“Wesley?” Paralyzed with joy, I stood there staring at my friend, who sat grinning and waiting for me to acknowledge him. Wesley had attended the Appalachian Trail Institute with me, and aside from Sarah and Doug, he had been my closest friend at the workshop.
He was a tall, thin man with tanned skin and deep laugh lines contouring his face. He was a retiree from Montgomery, Alabama, and he embodied a true Southerner—loud, opinionated, and kind.
With a crooked smile on his face, he rose from the floorboards and engulfed me with open arms. I held on to Wesley as if he had returned from the dead. I never thought I would see him again, and meeting him here, now—there couldn’t have been a sweeter reunion.
Wesley helped me situate all my belongings, sweetly prodded me to get my cold, damp body into a warm sleeping bag, and shared some of his dinner with me, which he unconvincingly claimed that he couldn’t finish. All I could do was lie there and smile as he tended to me with care and conversation.
When he was satisfied that I had eaten enough, Wesley began to regale me with stories from his first month on the trail. At the workshop, he had told Warren that he wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail so he could work hard and be outside, and he had gotten just what he wanted. His stories from the first few weeks on the trail were epic, but it seemed that each adventure ended with either sickness or injury. He rattled off a litany of ailments, including a broken rib, pneumonia, and a stress fracture in his foot. Then he followed that up with an even more impressive inventory of prescription drugs he was taking for his infirmities.
After Wesley was finished recounting his many mishaps, he looked to his left and introduced me to Deputy, who reminded me of Wesley, except that his accent was stronger, his beard was longer, and his skin was a deeper shade of caramel. Deputy and Wesley had been hiking together for several weeks. Eager to match his companion’s list of setbacks, Deputy immediately dove into how this was his fourth attempt to thru-hike the AT. In fact, I got the impression that Deputy enjoyed relaying the annals of hardship that had kept him from Katahdin. One year it was a broken leg, another it was family tragedy, and once it came down to budgeting and finances. Once, Deputy made it all the way up to Connecticut before having to stop. But despite his setbacks, he would start over at Springer Mountain each spring in an attempt to hike the entire trail.
I admired Deputy’s persistence, but after a day like today, I was convinced that I was only going to try this once. This was my one chance, and if I wanted to finish, then I needed to give it my all, because I wasn’t coming back.
That night I fell asleep as Wesley and Deputy tried to convince the five New Englanders in the shelter that the South had not technically lost The War—God bless those two if they ever make it past Maryland.
8
CONFIDENCE
CHERRY GAP SHELTER, TN, TO
DAMASCUS, VA—104.9 MILES
The rolling fourteen-mile descent off Roan Mountain to Highway 19E reveals some of the best scenery on the Appalachian Trail. The views from Big Hump and Little Hump stretch beyond the open fields of waving grass and provide glimpses of neighboring mountains in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. As the trail nears the Virginia border, it transitions from high peaks into level ridges and more gradual elevation changes. And the triumphal entry into Damascus, Virginia, marks a new state and the completion of four hundred and fifty miles.
It baffles me how I could feel weak and sore beyond repair and then, after nine hours of sleep, wake up feeling healthy and strong. When I opened my eyes and saw Wesley snoring beside me, I felt refreshed. Even though I had almost sworn off hiking the day before, it was a new day, and I felt drawn to the trail and eager to