Read Online Day Into Night by Dave Hugelschaffer - Free Book Online Page B

last night, how the woman’s thigh felt under my hand. I deserve some punishment and lean into the hill, sweat running into my eyes. At the crest, I roll into the ditch, gasp, vomit, catch my breath. There’s a breeze up here and a view of the mountains, white and jagged against blue sky. I saddle up and keep going.
    The highway is narrow, no shoulder, steep ditches. I occupy the last few inches of pavement — any farther and I’ll join the broken bottles and chip bags in the ditch. Loaded log trucks blast past in one direction while oversized motorhomes — worth more than the last house I lived in and driven by city dwellers intent on escape — swerve past me at the last second. I’m terrified I’ll become a stain on some Luxury Liner’s grille, or an unexpected speed bump.
    I take the first gravel road heading generally west, thankful to be alive.
    I’m in ranching country, rolling and fenced. Driveways are long and winding, framed by gateposts with the ranch’s brand burned into the wood. My lungs and legs are lobbying for a cessation of movement, my head seconding the motion, but I want to make it to the edge of the forest: a blanket of green on the slopes ahead, shimmering like a mirage. Amongst the trees, I can rest.
    The road begins to rise. Ranches give way to scattered subdivisions filled with immense houses, so new the dirt at their foundations is still fresh. I think of the trailers in town and wonder who owns these mansions, then remember this area next to the mountains is only an hour from the city. Curtain River has been discovered and everyone wants a piece of the rock. Farther up the road, the mock ski lodges end and a sign in the ditch, put up by the Department of Public Lands, informs me I am now entering the Green Area of the Province — a Working Forest where timber is produced, cattle graze and non-renewable carbon deposits are siphoned off.
    A 20-minute lounge in the shade and I feel better. Turn back? Shadow angles across the road ahead and I push on. Just another mile or two. The road is fairly level, it’s cool in the shade and gravel crunches satisfyingly under my tires. It would be pleasant if I wasn’t so hung over. I coast to a stop where the road forks. The main road veers to the left. The right arm of the fork is narrow, rutted and angles up a steep slope, switchbacking toward a hidden summit. I’m exhausted; the road is torture but something I don’t want to listen to is egging me on. Think of the top, it whispers. No, I mumble. I’m sick and I’m already 20 miles from town. You have to do this, the voice urges, and when I shake my head the voice becomes nasty, calls me a quitter, accuses me of cowardice.
    I groan, start up the slope.
    Pain and agony. My legs are filled with barbed wire, my chest is too small and my throat pinches so I can’t swallow. I downshift again, to the second easiest gear. I’ve never used the lowest gear — something always holds me back, no matter how difficult the slope. Maybe I want to have something in reserve. Maybe I’m just crazy. I look ahead — a mistake; the top of the road appears impossibly distant. I focus on the next switchback. My mind grows numb against the stress of forcing onward failing tissue and I hope for a sort of nirvana via necrosis. Finally, mercifully, the road flattens to a manageable grade and I’m at the top of a ridge.
    There’s a small cabin with a rain barrel, generator shed and outhouse in a circular clearing. It’s a forestry lookout tower — a tiny red-and-white cupola at the top of a hundred-foot derrick — where there really is a guy with a scope and pair of binoculars who spends his day vigilantly scanning the forest. I drop the bike and stagger weak-kneed across rocky, manicured lawn to a handmade bench close to the edge of the ridge. If it was punishment I needed, then I’m purified. Ten minutes later, I can breathe again and the tune of my pulse has returned from an uneven hip-hop to a good old blues