Pickleballers

Chapter Twenty

Twenty

Beneath a shaggy coat of white fur, the goat’s coal black eyes bore down on the hiking crew. Ethan and Meg’s narrow perch at the top of the knotted rope kept them above the danger, but Rooster and Annie still crouched on the tiny ledge below. They froze in surprise, their bodies mere feet away from the goat’s pointy horns and powerful hooves. Behind the pair, the chasm of the valley yawned, crossable only by that rickety bridge. In front of them, the stupid rope climbed the sheer rock face. The goat lowered her head, a low growl rumbling from her throat.

But the trouble did not end there. From her vantage above the scene, Meg spotted the source of a deeper threat. Behind the menacing creature, a kid on unsteady legs wobbled, wide-eyed, toward his mother. Great, Meg thought. Rooster and Annie were in goat territory, and now that momma goat was fixin’ to lift a minivan off her baby. Substitute “hikers” for “minivan,” and some crazy shit was about to go down.

And holy crap, who knew mountain goats were so big? The beast was the size of two Megs, at least. Maybe two and a half, if it was the upper half.

A billion thoughts streamed through her head in a matter of seconds. That stupid sign in the parking lot—what had it suggested in the wildlife warning? Yell? Walk slowly backward? Make yourself big? Offer dog treats? Hold on. Did those instructions apply to cougars, or mountain goats, or bears? Oh my!

She could distract the creature, make some noise. She should stomp her feet. If only she could unbind her muscles, she would rise up and stomp. Maybe two times. Come on, right foot. Stomp. Stomp. Left foot, let’s stomp. Everybody clap your hands. She turned to Ethan, eyes blazing with panic, and whispered, louder than intended, “What do we do?”

Momma goat lifted her head, searching for the sound. She looked up to the clifftop, her gaze passing indifferently over Meg’s tense body.

Ethan shouted, “Hey! Goat! Hey. Over here.” He waved his hands in the air, drawing her attention.

The goat inspected Ethan and Meg from beneath her hooded lids. Momma goat’s glare sent an alarm through Meg’s body, but it was enough to shock her out of her frozen posture and get to her feet. She followed Ethan’s lead. “Yoo-hoo. Up here, goat. Goaty. Goat-goat.” Meg flapped her arms like a flailing Icarus, and that shaggy head cocked to the side. “Yodel-lay-hee-hoo.”

The goat budged, inching toward the base of the rock wall, where the bottom of the rope dangled. Beside her, the kid tromped up to the twined rope and began chewing on the lowest knot.

Between her teeth, Meg used her ventriloquist skills to warn her friends. “Hurry! Go back.” But Annie and Rooster still crouched, poised like wax figures in a horror display. “You have to go back across that bridge!” Was she worried that the goat might read her lips? Logic wasn’t playing a large role in Meg’s actions.

Finally, Rooster’s eyes widened with understanding. He stood and made a move toward the plank bridge, but Annie grabbed him by his elbow and shook her head violently. Her expression read two ways: desperately, she knew she should back away from the angry goat, but her terror of the bridge glued her feet to the spot.

From their perch, Ethan jumped to action. Barking and clapping, he performed a goat-distracting clog dance, which, if nothing else, confused the creature momentarily. Meg nodded her chin at Annie. “Now!” Meg urged in her weird ventriloquist voice.

Rooster tugged at Annie and pulled her toward the gap. Her eyes bulged, wild with fear, and a high-pitched whine came from between her clenched teeth. Annie gripped his shoulder and allowed herself to be budged, an inch at a time, along those death trap planks. With his bad hand clutched to his stomach and his good hand loose on the rope, Rooster edged his way backward across the rickety bridge.

Below the pair’s shuffling feet, splintered shreds of rotting wood puffed off the boards and fell to their doom. The goat, attracted by the sound of movement, shifted. Meg needed to do something, quick, to regain the goat’s attention. “Yoo-hoo,” Meg sang out, and joined Ethan in an ill-conceived tap dance.

But Annie had halted, planted in panic on the bridge.

“Come on, Annie,” Rooster coaxed. “One more step.”

“I…can’t.”

At the sound of Annie’s trembling voice, momma goat turned, dipped her head, and bared her horns, prepping to bounce a minivan, an SUV, or a tricked-out eighteen-wheeler. She bleated an angry, I’m-gonna-mess-you-up kind of bleat. She dragged her hoof along the chalky ground and snorted. Then, coiling her stocky body, she readied herself. The goat sprang forward and rushed the bridge.

“Come on!” Rooster tugged. At last, jolting with urgency, Annie leapt to safety across the last inches of plank.

The goat came to a scrambling halt, skidding sideways before the precipice and using her considerable bulk as a roadblock. Her kid, who had skittered after her, slid into her body, narrowly avoiding a plunge over the edge.

Rooster took advantage of the commotion. He gripped Annie and yanked her down the path, backing away with a keen eye on the enraged beast. Before they disappeared behind the trees, Rooster yelled out, “Try to find the main trail. And call us as soon as you can!” Meg could hear their footsteps thundering down the path. And then they were gone.

Still, momma goat peered hungrily toward the woods, and Meg feared she would spring across the chasm after them. But instead, the goat turned and scanned the shallow ledge before lifting her head and drilling her gaze into Meg.

Really, she had nothing to be afraid of anymore. Right? Rooster and Annie were safe. So were she and Ethan. The climb was a sheer wall, straight up. Unless goats could climb ropes. Wait. Could goats climb ropes? No. Definitely not.

However, the goats must have appeared from somewhere.

“Come on. We can get a signal to reach them when we’re at the top. Let’s get outta here, quick.” Ethan pointed his chin off to the right.

Meg followed his gaze and eyed the slender trickle track that hugged the cliff. That game trail might switch back and climb the mountainside. Was it only a matter of moments before that mad mommy made her move and maneuvered up the mountain? Meg shook her head briskly. Occasionally, her mind alliterated when she felt apprehensive, and alas, her anxiety was approaching its apex. She took a deep breath. It helped.

“We’ll head uphill,” Ethan said. “Eventually, we’ll end up back on the main trail.”

Still shaking even as they quickstepped out of there, Meg said, “Ethan—” Her voice dropped off. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I got us into this mess. We should have stayed on the main trail and we never would have—”

“Let’s just keep moving,” he said, his long strides pushing her to keep up. “We have to put some distance between us and those goats.”

The ascent was brutal. The afternoon sun burned, and when she wiped the sweat from her brow, sunscreen leaked into her eye. She blinked away the pain, but the heat of the day and the rigor of the climb weighted her spirits. Ten minutes in, her thighs trembled, and by thirty minutes, they threatened to give way. How long would they be climbing, and when or if they reached the top, then what? Would they be able to find the main trail?

And to make matters worse, Ethan seemed intent on scaling the slope in silence. Guilt brewed. After all, it was she who had pressured him into trading in his lovely day hike for a goat-infested odyssey.

And she had other concerns, too. Not just about feeling responsible for Ethan’s situation, but for Annie’s and Rooster’s as well. She should text them, let them know she and Ethan had made it away from the vicious goat, and try to form a plan to reconnect.

Pulling her cell phone from her pocket as she tried to climb without tripping, she checked for a signal, but the cold must have knocked out the phone battery. So she picked up the pace and caught up to Ethan, following the steep incline on a trail that sometimes thinned or disappeared entirely.

Between bouts of worry and woe, she revisited self-doubt. Rooster’s pained expression mirrored her disappointment. With a fistful of crushed fingers on his racket hand, there was no way they could partner together in the tournament. Meg still wanted to be the heroine who helped bring in the win for her community. And she also wanted her shot at playing in a tournament and kicking Vance’s picklebutt. She thought about what Marilyn had suggested: that she and Ethan partner up.

But Ethan was currently double-timing it up a mountain so he wouldn’t have to spend an extra minute alone with her. Meg wanted to yell at him, to stop and ask him what the hell was the big problem, but her fear of his disinterest stopped her. She was not the master of her own ship. She was not even sure if she could swab the decks and pump out the head. Truth be told, she felt a little seasick just thinking about it.

What was it Rooster had said that night at the winery? Feel it. And then put it aside. There was nothing to do but concentrate on getting up the current hill. One foot in front of the other, she pressed herself to continue. Despite the cooling air, sweat trickled down the nape of her neck. Up the boulder field she went. Brambles bit her legs and spiderwebbed ferns swept her arms, but at last she could see where Ethan was headed.

Ahead, the tops of the trees gave way to the late-afternoon open sky. Even the air smelled different near the peak: cool air so fresh that it smelled like nothing at all. Snowy patches as large as footprints dotted the earth. In front of her, a glow between the trees brightened. Beyond the silhouetted trunks, the brilliant, cloudless sky looked white. When Meg peered past the woods, she exhaled with relief.

The summit.

Meg stepped out from the canopy onto the top of the world.

Beneath her feet, the pristine snow glittered. In the distance, the peaks of the majestic Olympics still wore their snowy crowns. The valley spread below her, a blue-green quilt, patched with evergreen trees.

Hearing her footsteps, Ethan turned to her. His face had changed. Gone was the casual coolness. Instead, something about his expression looked tender, and a bit broken. “Meg,” he said, and on his tongue her name sounded so vulnerable that a knot leapt to her throat. He began, “I think we should talk…”

Here it comes . Meg shivered with the icicles of imminent rejection. Was he planning to double-dump her, just to be certain: to leave her here on top of the mountain where she would freeze to death and eventually be discovered among the remnants of her last granola bar and a few stale gummy worms? She braced herself for the ax as she clutched the icy husk of her dead cell phone…

Which had begun to ring.