What I Wouldn't Give

Day 1

I’m almost at the fourth marker.

My sister, Lizzie, would be so proud of me right now. Even though she always said that you aren’t supposed to hike this late in the season. Not at my age. Autumn is just about over. Leaves are starting to fall off the trees and the nights are getting colder. So cold you could end up with frostbitten fingers.

But I made this promise. I’d finish the trail through Melaleuca Mountain. No one else my age will hike 200 kilometres, even for the prize money. No one. I told my friends that I’ll be the first one to reach the top this year. Nothing will stop me, even if I have to break every rule in the handbook. Even if it means sabotaging the trail.

This morning, before I turned the canister stove on to heat up my coffee, I heard this crunching of twigs outside my tent. They were footsteps, so I peeked through the zip of my tent and saw them there again. Three hikers kneeling in the snow, already packing up. They were so close I almost lost my nerve to crawl out of my own tent. It was the other contestants. Those kids from Swan Hill Springs—two guys with brown hair, bulky grey coats, and the other was a girl. Maybe eighteen or nineteen. Maybe a little older, but they all barely looked out of high school to me.

One of them was stretching, doing high-knee exercises, while the other two were already tying up their shoelaces. They didn’t even button up their coats, as if they’d never felt the cold last night. They had what my father would call “deer legs.” I’d been feeling so out of breath ever since I passed the third marker.

My gear is heavier this year, and I can’t seem to open my eyes fast enough after a bad night’s sleep.

Charlotte, our competition coordinator, said I was the oldest person in the group this year by at least twelve years. Back at the hiking station, she’d smiled like she was pleased to see someone my age giving it “a good old try.” But I haven’t come all this way to “give it a good try.” I didn’t drag my bones halfway up this mountain for participation points. I came to finish first.

And if I don’t think up something fast, I won’t stand much of a chance if the Swan Hill Springs kids keep gaining on me.

I turn up the long, winding trail that leads into the higher pass—dark trees, chirping kookaburras, and roots thick enough to blindly mistake them for dead snakes. The kids are in front of me, about fifteen feet away, sticking to the red hiking markers on the trail.

Right now, I’m watching their packs bob up and down as they make it further up the hill. I need another sip of water, but I don’t want to stop for anything.

Day 2

The night comes quicker than yesterday’s. But I finally make it to the fifth marker, which is about 40 kilometres in, give or take. My legs feel like wet bags of something heavy and my pack’s cutting into the bruise above my lower back. Right above the spider tattoo my sister and I had got done thirteen years ago for our 30th birthday. I wish she were with me.

I need to make camp for the night and remove all my gear. As I find somewhere to rest, I hear my father’s voice as if he’s speaking to me through the trees, saying “Always set your gear a few meters from where you sleep. It’s not the animals you need to worry about but the people.” In this area off the trail, the only spot that’ll hide my pack is behind a fallen tree trunk. No one will find it there. So I bend down and put my gear into a gap between the tree and my tent, where I can grab it fast if I need to. I keep my knife close, clipped to the outside pocket. Just in case.

#

Out here, the lights are the stars. Every now and then, I look over my shoulder at the campfire burning between the trees. The kids are laughing and drinking beers by the fire. Their tents are a few meters off the trail. While I get my canister ready and start pouring my beans into the pot, I get an idea.

The trail forks just after the next bend. One way leads straight to the higher pass and the other goes off back to the hiker’s station. I’ve thought about it so thoroughly all afternoon. I can shift the red markers to the left just far enough to send someone in the wrong direction come morning. It’s not dangerous. They’ll just be led back.

Day 3

I did it last night. I crawled out from my tent and moved all the red markers on this part of the trail about to where the trail bends. It took ages and I didn’t get any sleep, but I tucked them behind a line of bush so it still looked right.

Now, I’m already ahead of the whole group by about three hours. The Swan Hill Springs kids haven’t even made it to mid checkpoint yet. I feel guilty, but I’ve almost covered 80 kilometres of the trail so far. And I can’t stop now. God knows I really need that prize money.

I have a gas bill I haven’t paid for in two months and three of Lizzie’s medical bills are still sitting in a drawer back home, unopened, like ignoring them might make them disappear faster. I know I said I wanted to be the first to reach the top, but really, I need to be the first.

I’m halfway up Melaleuca Mountain, but the air’s so thin up here, my lungs don’t have the capacity to hold that much cold. The snow is deeper than it was a few hours back. I have to hold onto the sides of some tree trunks just to lift my feet up past the drifts swallowing the trail markers.

It’s 5:53pm and it’s getting dark. I need to find a place to pitch my tent for the night.

Day 4

“What are you waiting for?” someone asks from behind me. I turn around and see a man standing by the frozen waterfall behind the bend—ice crusting the rocks in pointy sheets like glass.

Great. Who’s this now? “What do you mean?” I shout from across the rocks.

He walks over to me, the pots hanging from his backpack clank together. “Well, I think we’re both ahead of the others.” He smiles. “Yay for us.”

“Well, I can’t be that far ahead if you’re here,” I say, looking up at him.

“Aye,” he laughs, brushing snow from his beard. “I knew I was closing in when I saw that boot print of yours.”

“So you’ve been tracking me?”

“Well, you’re a wee bit hard to miss. Besides, I’ve been right behind you since the bend at the ridge.”

Does he know? Did he see me move the markers last night?

“Look,” he says. “I was thinking. Why not camp together tonight?”

“Together? I just met you.”

“It’s just for tonight.”

Maybe it’s a good idea. I mean, I can get just as cold and tired as the next person, but this way I can watch him. See what he does.

"Just tonight."

“Fair enough,” he says, sloughing off the snow from the straps of his backpack. He eases his gear down by his boots and starts unpacking his tent poles. “I’m Andy by the way.”

“Jess.”

I’ll wait until it gets dark to leave Andy behind. The snow is picking up.

Day 5

I couldn’t get away from Andy last night. Now he’s asking me how old I am.

“I’m forty-three,” I say, trudging through the snow.

“I’d never have guessed that. You don’t look it.” He whistles softly. It’s a tune of a song I can’t put my finger on.

“What about you?”

He smiles. “Thirty-nine. Not much difference between us then. Do you—”

Before I let him speak, I stand in front of him, blocking the path. “Do you think we could just not talk anymore?”

He blinks and tilts his head away from my eyes then looks down at the snow. “Aye, we don’t have to.”

“Thanks.” I nod, focusing back on the path in front of me.

I’m halfway to the sixth marker now. I can’t fall behind.

Day 6

Last night, as we sat near the campfire, I tried leaving Andy in the middle of the night. I just wanted to slip away quietly, but he never fell asleep. He just talked on and on about his life back in Scotland, the family he never gets to see and the forest he grew up hiking around. I can’t pronounce the name of it even if I tried. The entire time, I wanted to twist put ear buds deep into my ears.

We’re eight kilometres past mid-checkpoint and there’s only a few more days left to get to the final checkpoint at the top of Melaleuca Mountain. I wonder how far back the other hikers are? If any made it past the ridge, I mean. There’s only eight contestants altogether, but when you haven’t seen that many people for over twenty-four hours—apart from the one guy who refuses to stop talking—you start to feel like maybe you’ve missed something. Or that maybe you’re just one step closer to winning this thing.

#

Daylight fades and Andy hasn’t left my side. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s sticking around this close because he’s suspicious of me, or whether he thinks we’re now some sort of team or something. We’re deep into the mountain and I can’t see the trail behind me anymore. Andy is waiting up ahead.

“It’s okay, you know,” I say, taking a breath. “You don’t have to wait for me. This is a race.”

“Aye, I know, but I don’t mind. We should start to camp now,” he says, staring up at the snow. “It’s coming down hard, don’t ya think?”

I look around at the forest and it all looks white and crystal-like, like we’re standing in a winter snow globe.

“That’s a good idea.”

We find a spot below a crooked tree covered in frost with no leaves, and start setting up our tents. I try rolling out my sleeping bag on the snow, but wind pushes against it.

I feel the cold sinking further into my bones. Andy brings me his thermos of hot tea.

“Here ya go, have a sip.”

I just about guzzle it down. “Thanks.”

“Where’d you get that thing?” Andy suddenly asks, pointing at the long silver hunting knife hanging from the side of my pack.

I put the thermos down.

“Oh, my father gave it to me for my twenty-first birthday.”

“That’s a weird gift to give your daughter on her birthday, isn’t it?”

“Not really. My sister and I spent a lot of our school holidays with him out in the bush like this. He wanted us to learn how to boil water, pitch tents, be able to cut through shrubs and tree branches with just a knife before we were even allowed to drive a car.”

Andy smiles and lifts the thermos up to his lips. “Looks like we’re out of tea, love. I’ll boil another.”

We boil water over his tiny stove. And then he talks my ears off about the mountains near Inverness again, how different the cold is back home. I nod all polite, trying to look tired.

After tea, when I hear him finally zip up his tent, I lie awake thinking about how I’m going to break away from him. I mean, if I were to leave now, he’d just follow me.

His lantern is off. Maybe he won’t notice if I sneak away in a few minutes.

Day 7

Andy is far behind me now. I had to leave my tent behind so I wouldn’t wake him. I moved the markers last night. He never noticed. I found one of the red trail markers nailed to a tree trunk and forced my knife down on the top, prying it off. Then I took a broken branch and shoved it into the snow, sticking the marker on it, but a few meters off.

He’s probably back there losing just enough time before he realises he’s going the wrong way and turns back. It’s not dangerous or anything because there are rangers who trek the mountain every few days or so, making sure no one really gets lost. He’ll just think the weather got in the way of the trail. That the snow buried the markers or the wind knocked them loose. By the time he figures it all out, I’ll be long gone, more than halfway to the finish line.

Day 8

I woke up early this morning and hiked up the higher pass, passing these two beautifully twisted snow gum trees. My father used to say they have magic in them like if you make a wish the sap inside will make it come true. My only wish right now is to win this thing. Not just for me, but for Lizzie too. For all the years she carried me through worse things than numb fingers and hiking 200 kilometres at forty-three years old.

I trudge up this steep hill, my boots crunch the snow, thinking about what my mother said the night before I left.

“You’re not a kid anymore, Jess. I know you think you have to do this, but you don't. Not at your age. What if you get hurt? Fall and no one’s there?”

She’d loved reminding me of the dangers of a woman hiking alone, but I’ve done this a lot. Given I was much younger and stronger, but does that mean I’m not capable? My sister and I did the trail in our twenties. But does that mean I should’ve just stayed home? I had to out-hike everyone any way I could think of to stay ahead.

I’m not proud of the things I’ve done to get this far, but did I really have much of a choice?

Day 9

I reach for my thermos. There’s still some tea left.

The wind is brutal today. I had to stop every ten minutes to catch my breath and get my legs warm. They’re starting to feel numb. And it’s been a lot harder to rest up without my tent. Visibility is dropping lower each day with the snow blurring the light, but I just past the ninth marker. I’m close. I can feel it.

I haven’t seen Andy or even the Swan Hill Springs kids yet. I haven’t seen anyone in over forty-eight hours. I hope they’re all okay, but I can’t say I’m not happy that the snow is covering up my tracks. I’m almost at the end. Just one more bend and I’ll be able to see the top of Melaleuca Mountain where the final flag is waiting.

I already see the tenth marker.

Day 10

I’m near the end.

I’ve been walking all night. I didn’t even stop to set up camp or sleep. My legs and hands are numb, but I’m so close that I can see the final checkpoint and the flag waving in the distance.

Just a few more hours and I’ll be there.

#

When I reach the edge, I hear it. The tune Andy was humming. The cold seeps into my throat and I stop. Is that him? Standing under the pole?

“How’d you get here?” I ask.

“So, you made it.”

I stare up at him. “How’d you get here before me?”

“Oh, there’s this shortcut in the trail no one knows about. No one except me, of course. Gets ya here in half the time.”

“But that’s cheating, isn’t it? I mean, you’re not—”

“Well, I was never really in the race,” he says, cutting me off.

“What do you mean?”

He looks at his watch like he’s waiting for something.

“I’m one of the rangers they send out in bad weather. Make sure no one freezes out here.”

He looks over my shoulder, down the slope I just hiked up. “Most of em go back, they do. The three kids gave up on day five. The rest on the second day. You’re the last one out here officially in the race.”

All this time no one was behind me. I take a minute to think about the tracks I covered up. The markers I moved. The trouble I went to just to stay in front.

“So, I won then?”

“You know you never had to do any of that,” he says, and I start sweating. “You were already alone by day six.”

“If you know about the markers, about what I did, does it mean I’m disqualified?”

He stares at me. He doesn’t gloat or tell me off. He just says, “You’re the only one left so just take the bloody flag.”

I take the flag from the pole and turn.

Andy walks behind me humming that tune as we stand on the trail.