A Walk in the Woods

were never sure how much we could prudently swallow without leaving ourselves short
later on. Even fully stocked, we were short now thanks to Katz's dumping a bottle. Finally,
there were the relentless insects, the unsettling sense of isolation, and the ever-taxing
terrain.
Katz responded to this in a way that I had never seen from him. He showed a kind of
fixated resolve, as if the only way to deal with this problem was to bull through it and get
it over with.
The next morning we came very early to the first of several rivers we would have to
ford. It was called Bald Mountain Stream, but in fact it was a river--broad, lively, strewn
with boulders. It was exceedingly fetching--it glittered with dancing spangles in the early
morning sun and was gorgeously clear--but the current seemed strong and there was no
telling from the shore how deep it might be in the middle. Several large streams in the
area, my Appalachian Trail Guide to Maine noted blithely, "can be difficult or dangerous to
cross in high water." I decided not to share this with Katz. We took off our shoes and
socks, rolled up our pants, and stepped gingerly out into the frigid water. The stones on
the bottom were all shapes and sizes--flat, egg-shaped, domed--very hard on the feet,
and covered with a filmy green slime that was ludicrously slippery. I hadn't gone three
steps when my feet skated and I fell painfully on my ass. I struggled halfway to my feet
but slipped and fell again; struggled up, staggered sideways a yard or two, and pitched
helplessly forward, breaking my fall with my hands and ending up in the water doggie
style. As I landed, my pack slid forward and my boots, tied to its frame by their laces,
were hurled into a kind of contained orbit; they came around the side of the pack in a
long, rather pretty trajectory, and came to a halt against my head, then plunked into the
water, where they dangled in the current. As I crouched there, breathing evenly and
telling myself that one day this would be a memory, two young guys--clones almost of the
two we had seen the day before-- strode past with confident, splashing steps, packs
above their heads.
"Fall down?" said one brightly.
"No, I just wanted a closer look at the water." You moronic fit twit.
I went back to the riverbank, pulled on my soaked boots, and discovered that it was
infinitely easier crossing with them on. I got a tolerable grip and the rocks didn't hurt as
they had on my bare feet. I crossed cautiously, alarmed at the force of the current in the
center--each time I lifted a leg the current tried to reposition it downstream, as if it
belonged to a gateleg table--but the water was never more than about three feet deep,
and I reached the other side without falling.
Katz, meantime, had discovered a way across using boulders as stepping stones but
ended up stranded on the edge of a noisy torrent of what looked like deep water. He
stood there covered with frowns. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how he had
gotten up there--his boulder seemed isolated in an expanse of dangerously streaming
water from all sides, and clearly he didn't know what, to do now. He tried to ease himself
into the silvery current and wade the last ten yards to shore but was instantly whisked
away like a feather. For the second time in two days I sincerely thought he was drowning-
-he was certainly helpless-- but the current carried him to a shallow bar of gleaming
pebbles twenty feet farther on, where he came up sputtering on his hands and knees,