Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [39]
For the first time in two days, it wasn’t raining. After rustling Wesley to a waking stupor and wishing him good-bye, I left the shelter and continued walking north.
The trail was peaceful, the wind was calm, and a quiet serenity pervaded the woods. The only noise came from my shoes gently snapping a twig or lightly crunching the leaves on the trail. I entertained myself with thoughts of the new friends that I had made, thoughts of an upcoming visit in Banner Elk, thoughts of my proud father at home telling every person he knew what I was doing, and my mom standing beside him and rolling her eyes.
Suddenly, a noisy footstep interrupted my thoughts. Steps in the woods make a distinct sound, and what I had heard was clearly a footstep, but it wasn’t mine, and it hadn’t come from the trail. I looked to the right of the path and there, peering out from behind a tree ten feet away, was a large man in head-to-toe camouflage holding a shotgun.
“Ya seen any turkeys?” asked the man.
“Turkeys?” I repeated, wide-eyed and still in shock.
“Yeah, tur-keys.” This time he enunciated very clearly, in an attempt to make me feel like a moron.
There was a pause. I wasn’t opposed to hunting, but I didn’t like being surprised. In particular, I didn’t like being surprised by men dressed in tan-and-green unitards holding big guns, especially if they were targeting wildlife that I hoped to see alive. But what scared me the most was that I hadn’t seen this hunter until I was within a few yards of him. He had stayed completely still and well disguised, silently watching me approach, then appeared unexpectedly and without warning. Weren’t these guys supposed to wear bright orange caps or something?
I wanted to tell him that I had been out here for several weeks and had not seen a single wild turkey, and that he should just give up and go home.
But instead I scowled and replied, “nope, no tur-keys.”
Realizing the negative impression he had made, the hunter tried halfheartedly to redeem himself. It sounded forced, but as he turned to leave, he said, “Well, have a good hike and watch out for hunters, ’cuz it’s the first day of the season.”
The season—turkey season. Great. I didn’t have to worry about thunderstorms today, but I did have to worry about men in camo running around the woods with loaded guns. For the rest of the day I was paranoid, especially when I had to pee and couldn’t be sure that men weren’t hiding behind trees and watching.
Thankfully, most hunters aren’t motivated enough to climb a six-thousand-foot mountain to look for turkeys, so I made it to the top of roan Mountain without any further encounters. roan, like Unaka, offered a beastly climb to the summit. Its rocky slope and steep grade is said to rival the peaks in new Hampshire and Maine, but unlike Unaka, I completed the long ascent with relative ease.
Roan’s summit is covered in a spruce forest and doesn’t offer any panoramic views from the top. However, after navigating a mile and a half off the peak, the trail reaches an exposed ridge, which is covered in tall golden stalks of grass that roll like waves in the breeze.
Within the swaying expanse of amber hues, there are several dark green islands of rhododendron. Up until now, I had mostly seen rhododendron bushes with their leaves tightly curled like cigars and pointing to the ground, but when the temperatures warm up, a rhododendron bush will unclench its fists and open them to the sky. That afternoon, the plants on Roan Mountain unfurled their leaves and lifted them heavenward.
Imitating the rhododendron, I lifted my hands to the clear blue sky. It felt so good that I stopped walking, looked to the sky, and began to spin in circles. I felt safe and free like an uninhibited child. Then I felt dizzy, really dizzy. I stopped twirling and took several drunken steps up the trail until I could once again walk in a straight line.
When the path reentered the forest, I was filled with awe by the surrounding vegetation. The forest had soaked up two straight days of rain and now looked greener and smelled more