There’s always about 10% of me that believes our family hikes at The Cabin are just a pretext. As we drive through rural roads, further and further from civilization, I am always mindful of every Lifetime movie ever made. The husband, tired of marriage, takes his wife to a remote locale to hasten that whole “till death do us part” thing.
I’m ready.
I’m mostly sure Don doesn’t want to kill me. Unfortunately for me, the byproduct of being a horror movie buff/TV addict is that a hike in the woods is never just a hike. It’s a potential snuff film.
Just this Sunday Don suggested a hike. Sunday. Sundays are when we leave The Cabin. To be fair, Don himself was staying on at The Cabin, the lure of hunting far more powerful than the lure of our anniversary.
And any, um, celebrating that may go with it.
Leaving The Cabin as fast as possible is apparently not on Don’s agenda, since he didn’t recognize the haste in mine. Why would I linger at The Cabin? So I could shower with a serpentine bug and a few spiderwebs? So I could not go to Starbucks? So I could miss George Stephanopolous?
The Cabin television doesn’t get ABC.
My guard was immediately up, as it is with any Cabin hike, but more so this day, the eve of our anniversary. What a poetic day to off me.
So as he counseled the kids to wear long pants and socks, I watched him carefully. He didn’t load any weapons into the many pockets of his pants, but I wasn’t fooled. I’ve watched enough television to know I wasn’t off the hook.
I asked Don if he was planning to kill me. He said yes, like he always does, and instructed me to turn, turn, turn down narrow, dirt paths.
We piled out of the car, Don hooking Pete to his leash and again making no move to smuggle any weapons onto his person. I watched Don from the corner of my eye, partly to dodge any attempt at bludgeoning, partly out of curiosity.
Don visibly relaxes when we hike. He takes in his surroundings, looking for, well, I don’t know. I cannot fathom what Don will find on these hikes that is fascinating. But find things he does, and points them out to us, and revels in his finds.
He and the kids stop frequently to inspect and identify insects, or birds, or turtles.
Turtles are just the worst. Those ghastly snake heads peeking out from their shells. Ugh.
These things move him in a way they don’t move me. I feel moved each time I watch the Star Trek movie reboot. Don must be made of steel, because he never wells up when Leonard Nimoy, as Spock, sees his old friend Jim Kirk for the first time in decades because he’s outlived him but has now traveled back in time.
Don fails to see the beauty in the fight between Black Widow and Hawkeye, in the closing scenes of Avengers: Endgame, a fight borne of their friendship and deep love for each other. He refuses to watch The Mandalorian, even though he saw A New Hope in the theater twenty-three times.
Although, in his defense, he did give me sage advice regarding The Mandalorian. When I told Don I had a crush on the Mandalorian but that I feared my crush would be squelched if I ever saw him without his helmet, Don wisely told me to never see him without his helmet.
That’s true love right there.
Is Don just as mystified by my inability to see the joy in our children crouching over a defunct hornets’ nest as I am over his inability to love the celluloid? Doubtful. He reconciled himself to my failures long ago.
As we walked what Don called “the trail” and I called “enough brush to camouflage snakes”, I observed the land around us. I can’t say it was like gazing over the ocean, where miles and miles of water end in a horizon that you know is just really more miles of water.
It was more like standing on the edge of a lake – enough acreage to intimidate, but not enough to where the landscape disappeared from view. Trees and different elevations in the terrain circumscribed the panorama I beheld.
I asked Don if people ever depart the path we currently tread, head off into those tall blonde grasses surrounding us.
“Sure,” he said. “Hikers, hunters. All the time probably. Why?”
I had been wondering if this would be a good place to dump a body, and told Don so. His answer disqualified the scene before us. Anyone who has ever read a mystery novel knows the longer a body lingers, the better off the perpetrator is likely to be.
“Well that’s why hunters and hikers are always the ones to find bodies,” Don pointed out. I’m not squeamish about dead bodies. I added this possibility to the few items in the “pro” column for being outdoors.
Our hike continued. Another hiker came into view, heading towards us on the same path we now walked.
I know what you’re thinking. What are the chances another hiker would be on this path at the exact moment we traversed it? Clearly this guy haunts this path, waiting for some unsuspecting family he can slaughter.
Except I’m not unsuspecting. I’m suspecting. I’m suspicious. I’m wary. I once – accidentally, I swear – sliced open Don’s finger with a knife I kept under my pillow when I slept alone. It’s how I wound up with bear spray in my bedside table. Don was afraid the next injury would be fatal. Bear spray might make him really uncomfortable, but he’ll live to tell the tale.
I keep a multipurpose tool in my purse, full of sharp, shiny weapons. My instinct, upon seeing the interloper, was to have one of the blades ready. The multipurpose tool package said they’re really “tools” to use as camping knives or cuticle scissors. But there are way too many blades for that thing to be merely functional.
As this was a hike, I hadn’t brought my purse. Purses are frowned upon in hiking situations. But Don – big, broad-shouldered, protective, always prepared Don – surely was ready to attack. Not wanting to give away Don’s ambush, I glanced at him quickly, thankful for the sunglasses shielding my eyes.
Don was not preparing an assault. He was, in fact, smiling and waving at the guy. He offered a genial “How’s it going?” as we passed our assailant, and never even looked over his shoulder to make sure the wannabe Ted Bundy hadn’t double-backed on us.
Don’s not even that friendly at parties.
Well, at least one of us was prepared to fight. I watched that guy until he disappeared from view.
I went straight from that hike to my car to home. I have a critical routine after The Cabin, one that involves exfoliating shampoo, face scrub, and body salt. This ritual removes The Cabin cooties. My near death experience on the hike only made me more desperate to exfoliate. I went to bed with all the lights on, my iPad cued up to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Better extinct animals than real ones.
Also, better a really bad movie than no movie at all. Movies don’t typically happen at The Cabin. That’s an indoors activity. We do outdoors things at The Cabin.
And no. No one is amused when you download The Meg, pop in your earbuds, and hit the hiking trail.
Don came home a few days later – well after our anniversary – hoping for some Parcheesi before heading back into the woods. What he got was me on the sofa, crying because Leonard Nimoy had once again stumbled across a young James Kirk.
Then he got some Star Trek trivia, all of which he’s almost definitely heard before, and all of which he cares nothing about.
In my defense, you can’t skip out on me for two weeks and expect the Parcheesi board to just be set up, ready to go. You know?
I talked to Don, now back at The Cabin, the other night. He told me how, during his four o’clock in the morning hike to his deer stand, his headlamp died. I explained to him about forests, and the evil entities that lie within, and that killing your light is their stock in trade.
He humored me, like he usually does when I issue warnings about the supernatural, axe murderers, wayward hitchhikers, and old houses.
I know he’s not really taking my advice. Or protecting himself.
I went to bed. I had done all I could do for him. I kept all the lights on, the better to ward off demons and ghosts. I had bear spray by my side, ready to use on any intruder.
Because one of us should be ready.
We have children to raise.