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Rendezvous:

a hypertext adventure

by

Nowick Gray

The cabin appears in the distance, nestled beside a half-frozen pond. It's a scene from an old-fashioned Christmas card--except the cabin's chimney pipe shows no smoke.

"Looks like we're the first ones here," I say to Matt. I check my watch again.

My companion bends forward with the weight of his pack. He rests his hands on his knees, catching his breath. "Yeah--what time is it?"

"Twenty past three."

"Well, we're behind schedule from losing our trail. They could have had the same trouble on the other side."

"Yeah; or maybe they got a late start."

Matt turns his eyes from me toward the cabin. Sweat generated from our last steep climb up the scree slope drips from his limp, wet mustache.

I try some other explanation: "Maybe they're already in the cabin and there's no wood; or they've just got there and haven't lit a fire yet." I start to shiver. It's the end of June, but at six thousand feet a sweating body cools quickly.

We trudge on through wet, foot-deep snow to the cabin. A couple of wooden steps at the entrance are falling apart, but otherwise the rustic structure appears stoutly built, with walls of rough planks supported by a stone foundation.

I push open the creaking door; wind whips into the single room. There is a neat pile of split firewood stacked beside a little stove, with cobwebs stretched between.

The cabin is well-equipped, for all its remoteness. There are stacks of blankets and sleeping bags and spare shoes, all on a drying rack overhead; and four built-in bunks complete with foam mattresses. In the kitchen cupboards we find matches, toilet paper, tea, cocoa, canned soup, and a bag of rice--along with a portable campstove and fuel, cookware and dishes.

Matt starts unlacing his wet boots and suggests we get a fire going to dry our clothes and heat water for tea. I'm too anxious for the arrival of the other party to sit tight just yet; I tell him to go ahead, and I'll scout around to see if I can see or hear a sign of their approach. He tries to reassure me that they're probably just running late. But I leave him to the stove and take off with map in hand to the end of the ridge, calling out and peering down into the dim vastness of the Tumbler Creek drainage.

There's no response to my shouts in the empty wind. I know that somewhere down there, a trail runs along the heavily wooded slope, veering up for a final ascent to the pass. Somewhere down there are my wife Faron, our daughter Suze, and an adult companion, now over half an hour late. That's not a big deal, if you're meeting someone at a restaurant; but this is wilderness. A beauty so desolate, and incomplete . . .

Go to cabin, or Start back at home...

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