Water and Air
by Brontë Goodspeed Gross
-Barbara Bretting Non-Fiction Winner
Pedal. Breathe. Pedal against the hill. Breathe in the burning air. Push down, one more stroke. Gasp.
Pedal. Groan. It hurts to breathe; each exhale flames out of my mouth like dragon’s fire. I think I might be
turning into one – this is what a dragon feels like, all heat and pressure and a scaly wrath at the torture of it
all. Biking through the Klamath mountains on the northern edge of California is dangerous work on 100-degree days. There’s no shade up here on this skeletal road, just the baked brown of beaten asphalt glaring in a
summer sun. I check my water, and it’s running out, down to drops and wishes.
I eke out the last draught and call to my two friends ahead of me to check their status. Everyone’s
eyeing their last drink, and in a few seconds of noisy glugging, we’re all dry. We stop, take stock, and look
around. Jacob and Marina, my only two friends crazy enough to become my travelling companions, shuffle
through their backpacks, searching for something, anything, to drink. To the west, the hills drop away to a
vast gulch, at the bottom of which runs the Smith River, and to the east a dirty slope ascends to a forested
hill. Out here, heat stroke is more of a promise than a threat. All signs of civilization have dried up with the
water.
Pedal. Breathe.
Jacob and Marina pull ahead as I puff along in the rear, hauling behind me fifty extra pounds of gear
in a little wheeled cart called a burley. Normally I can still outpace the other two, even pulling the burley, but
hills are the exception, and on this one I’m really struggling. I’m too stubborn to let them know that though.
Cars zip past, trailing dust and smoke that loiters on the roadsides in the dry heat. Inside, the occupants press
their faces to the fans and turn the AC full blast, swooshing their hair back as if they were in shampoo commercials. I become enraptured with brief glimpses of their faces, so slack with comfort and ease that I could
cry. Behind me, I hear a rattle that grabs my focus. A quick glance backwards reveals a pickup truck pulling a
hog trailer. Too late, I notice the pig crap spilling out of the back as the trailer trundles up the hill. As it passes me, I can see it laying down the world’s longest skid mark. A fine breeze kicks up just then, and as I shout
and try to swerve, I am gently misted with manure, greenish-brown particles clinging to my shirt and arm
like little shitty lice, gently spattering on my face and crawling into my nose. The low guttural scream I emit
is full of disbelief and horror that resounds off the hilltops and I grind to a halt, loudly bemoaning the unfortunate coincidences of an inconsiderate universe. Jacob yells with me, although we discover that he was only
lightly tickled by the airborne effluence. When we catch up to Marina with the news, she laughs hysterically
until she almost falls off her bike. There’s no water to wash off with, no stream or trickle or raincloud, nor the
precious remnants of a water bottle. I pat myself off as much as possible and continue on. There’s a thin green
line laying on top of the road that guides us to the rest stop at the top of the hill.
You know, when you get past the heat, rise above the shit of everyday life, the low hills and mountains out here are mutedly beautiful. They aren’t craggy or rough or really even mountainous. They’re rolling
giants, the Sierra Range’s ass end, miles of craggy buttocks, covered with hairy forests and little rocky pimples. Rivers run through the cracks like… I shake my head and turn my attention back to pedalling.
Pedal. Breathe.
Time and road blend together, and a dripping, sweating half hour later sees me turning into the rest
area. Jacob is sitting up against a low wall, and he smiles lazily when he spots me entering – he’s got the kind
of smile that colonizes his face, slow to move but sure to stay. Marina is sitting at a picnic table, slowly peeling a banana next to a Nalgene so brimming with water that she didn’t bother screwing the cap back on. She
gestures at the bottle and I drop my bike, not caring enough to fumble with the kickstand. I stumble over,
chug half of it, and then upend it over my head, trying to wash off the stink of pig manure and rancid sweat
that I carried up the mountain with me. Satisfied with my impromptu shower, I flop on the ground and mouth
curses at my complaining legs until I feel better, even if they don’t. My friends also take the opportunity to
sprawl out in the shade in a half-conscious torpor, Jacob flipping his long, greasy black hair over his eyes to
block out the light.
When I rise, I walk out and peruse the ponderosa pines and their conifer friends. Standing beneath
their shaggy boughs, I think of Aldo Leopold’s infamous essay “Thinking Like a Mountain,” of how his glimpses into a dying wolf’s eyes showed a green fire. I walk over to a lookout and think that the trees could be that