Mountain Fever by Janet I. Buck

The coup de grâce of our Senior year at Oregon Episcopal Schools in Portland , Oregon was an Outward Bound expedition, a 27-mile hike through the Columbia Gorge, the first event of its kind in the history of the school. There was no such thing as a category for disabled children and I was an amputee with a plethora of congenital deformities. Participation was voluntary, of course, and involved training in both endurance and rappelling. When the idea was presented to our senior class and our principal asked who didn’t want to go, only one hand went up in the room, and it wasn’t mine. Martha was healthy and capable, but she had no interest whatsoever: “No way on earth I’m diving off cliffs, hauling a 40 pound backpack through a cold forest in the rain, and cleaning bugs out of a sleeping bag in the middle of the night,” she wailed. Everyone laughed, but seemed nonplussed and undeterred from this little adventure. Mr. Wood gave us a choice: final exams or a hike. Suddenly the room fell silent and everyone stared straight at me, their laser eyes like pin pricks in a voodoo doll. My classmates were waiting for my hand to go up in the nervous air. They stared so hard I was sure they could see my underwear. I said nothing. I didn’t move.

I wanted to go so badly I could almost taste the moisture in the trees, but I was swallowed by the fear that I would drain the patience and strength of my friends who had the luxury of taking navigation for granted. I knew it was a crazy idea -- held so much risk of disappointment -- yet foamed like a topped-off root beer float with powdered opportunity. Later that day, after math class was over, I was walking by the faculty lounge and stopped to pick up a book I dropped. The door was barely cracked and I froze when I heard my name. “Janet didn’t raise her hand,” said Sam Dibbins, our tennis coach. “What the heck are we going to do? There is no way on this green earth that girl can hike those trails, cross those creeks, carry fifty pounds on her back with just one leg,” said one of the science teachers. “If she collapses or takes a bad fall, we’ll have to carry her out,” he said. “It isn’t prudent.” Suddenly the room grew gravely quiet and I was sure I could hear them scratching their heads. “Maybe, if we’re lucky, her father won’t sign the permission form,” he added. As the conversation continued, they discussed the fact that Outward Bound was all about pushing the limits, breaking set boundaries, about realizing potentials people do not know are there. “We’ll figure it out,” said Dibbins. “I say she goes! It may drag down the other kids, but it will also teach them teamwork.” I limped off down the hall, hoping they hadn’t heard the noisy click of my artificial knee.

On spring break one night, I waited until after dinner and took the permission form into my father’s study. “What’s this?” he asked. “Oh, it’s a little off-campus picnic,” I said. “Just scribble your name; it’s no big deal,” I added, fumbling my words as I uttered this little white lie. He signed the form with the flick of his wrist and went back to sorting through his mail. And then the dream began.

Since it was the month of May, we were hoping for nice weather; instead, we were met with relentless rain, so heavy it looked like falling apples against a backdrop of emerald silk. In breaths between showers, we were surrounded by gnat clouds as thick as bedroom drapes. The forest was all-consuming to me, lush green ferns like peacock fans rustling in a light wind. The terrain was not terribly steep, but the hiking path was narrow and relatively untraveled. My body had never been free to write its own rules, and the uneven ground only exacerbated the problem. Each step was a problem to be solved. My friends kicked boulders and sticks out of my way as we hiked, in a vain attempt to prevent my falls. I was always on the ground, always wet from the moss, but the majesty of our surroundings and the smiles of my friends kept me afloat. They took turns helping me up. The blisters on my thigh bled into the wool sock around my stump and we dried it at night by taking turns fanning it over what tiny campfires we could manage to keep ablaze.

At one point the trail narrowed to a foot of loose dirt which was the only ledge we had against the wall of a very steep cliff. It was a long way down. The belly of the gorge looked like something out of a jungle movie on a wide, wide screen. But this was no movie we could turn off or ignore. Dibbins roped our backpacks together and we crossed it in a slow line, stomachs flat against the wall, one at a time, barely breathing as we moved. I tested each twig in the mountain’s hide for the surety of its hold. Most came out of the earth at the slightest pull. When my boots slipped, they tightened the ropes in one quick, impulsive jerk, bringing me back to a stand.

That night, when they thought I was fast asleep in our tent, two of the boys snuck in and took more weight out of my backpack. They sensed the fragility of my pride, treating it like wet fingernails they didn’t want the world to smudge; they would do nothing to make me feel ashamed or burdensome. The second night of the trip, it began to snow. First in tiny white grains, then in doughy flakes larger than our fingertips. I was soaked to the proverbial bone from falling in creeks along the way, and that night they stripped me naked and put me in someone’s dry sleeping bag. Two of the others had to double-up in one; you don’t take extras on a hike like this. In a pretty short time, laughter was reeling its tubas through the frosted trees as the two of them squirmed and jostled for a little precious space. Some of us were in grave danger of frostbite and we had to hike out in the middle of the night. Because our trip had been cut short, our teachers promised us another one in the summer, a hike in the Wallowa Mountains , where we would get to rappel.

Graduation night, in front of hundreds of parents and relatives, I received more awards than my hands could carry down the aisle, and my father, sitting in the audience at Trinity Church, listened as the principal told the story of our hike and our choir sang “Amazing Grace.” When it came time for the second hike, he signed the forms with a flourish of pride. He understood the force of will like hiccups that I couldn’t stop. by Janet I. Buck