The Road to Grace

  “What makes you think I don’t have peace?” I asked.

  “Because you can’t hate and have peace.”

  I thought over her words. When I finally spoke I shook my head. “I don’t know, Pamela.”

  She looked back down, closing her eyes to conceal her pain, though tears stole through the corners of her eyes. It pained me to add to all she’d been through.

  After a moment I said, “This is just a lot to process. It’s been a long day. I need to sleep on it.”

  She nodded understandingly. “We can go back to the motel.”

  I looked at her for a moment, then pushed my chair back from the table and stood. “Can I get you something else to eat? You could take it back to your room.”

  She shook her head as she stood. “No. I’m okay,” she said softly.

  We walked silently together back to the motel. I saw Pamela to her door. She inserted her room key, but instead of opening the door, turned to me. “Whatever you decide, thank you for listening. You have no idea how much it helps. Especially knowing that my girl found someone who truly loved her.” She opened her door and stepped inside.

  “Pamela.”

  She looked back at me.

  “I’m sorry that you went through what you did.”

  She smiled sadly. “Thank you. Good night, Alan.”

  “Good night,” I said.

  She shut her door, and I went back to my room. I was emotionally exhausted. I just wanted to go to bed, but I hadn’t washed my clothes in days and the motel had a tiny Laundromat. I gathered my clothes and put them in the washer, then went back to my room. I watched television until it was time to transfer my clothes to the dryer. Then I returned to my room and the television. Finally, at eleven, I returned to the Laundromat and gathered up all my things.

  Back in my room, I threw everything on the dresser, then turned out the lights and climbed into bed. Only then, staring into the darkness, did I allow my mind to return to Pamela and the evening’s conversation. “What do I do, McKale?” I said aloud. “What do you want me to do?”

  I fell asleep with those words on my lips.

  C H A P T E R

  Eight

  My father used to say, “Pity is

  just a poor man’s empathy.”

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  I’m not one to ascribe religious significance to psychological or natural phenomenon. I roll my eyes with incredulity when someone claims a higher power found him a parking spot in front of the local Wal-Mart or a potato resembles Jesus or the Virgin Mother—as if anyone has any idea what either of them look like.

  Nor have I ever given much credence to the supernatural nature of dreams. I suppose that my beliefs follow the lines of mainstream psychology—that dreams are just repressed thoughts that slip out at night, like teenagers after their parents are asleep. Having said this, there was something so singularly powerful and peculiar about the dream I had that night that I couldn’t help but wonder about its source. I’ll leave it to you to determine its origin. As for me, it changed my heart.

  I dreamt that I was back out on highway 90, sweaty and hot, my backpack heavy on my shoulders, my legs weary from the day’s travel. I was walking the same road where Pamela had fallen the day before. Actually, it was the same time that Pamela had fallen, as I could see her ahead of me on the ground, and myself, crouched over her, helping her. At least that’s what I thought I was doing. As I neared I could hear her screaming in agony. That’s when I saw that I held a hammer in my hand. I was nailing Pamela to a cross.

  I shouted at myself to stop, but neither of the figures in my dream could hear me. I ran to my own side and tried, in vain, to stop my arm. “Leave her alone!” I shouted. “She’s suffered enough!”

  Just then there was another voice, even more pained than mine. “Stop! Please, stop.”

  The three of us looked up. McKale was standing in the road ahead of us. She was barefoot and tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Stop,” she said softly. “Stop hurting my mother.”

  I looked back down and Pamela looked into my eyes. “Please,” she said. “Grace.”

  I woke, my sheets soaked with sweat. I looked over at the red digits of the motel clock. It was almost 4 A.M. It took me an hour to fall asleep.

  When I woke I took an extra long shower. I sat on the floor of the shower bath and let the warm water flow around me, relaxing my mind. I shaved in the tub, then got out and packed my things. A little after seven I knocked on Pamela’s door. It took her a couple of minutes to open.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I was still getting ready.”

  Somehow, she looked different to me. Whether the change was real, or only in my mind, there was a difference. When I was a teenager my father told me that when we hate someone we make them more powerful than they are. By that measure, Pamela had been a giant in my life. Not now. Not anymore. The curtain had been pulled aside. She looked small and vulnerable.

  “Would you like to get some breakfast?” I asked.

  “I’d love to.”

  The Wall Drug diner served pancakes, fried eggs, sausage, and hash browns for breakfast. I waited for the food, carrying it over to the table when it was done.

  “Here you go,” I said, setting the tray down. “Breakfast is served.”

  “That’s too much food, but thank you,” she said. “How did you sleep?”

  I sat down across from her. “I’ve slept better. How about you?”

  “I slept a lot better than I did yesterday.”

  “I bet,” I said. “Considering you slept on the ground without a blanket.”

  “That was not a good night.”

  I poured syrup on my pancakes. “Do you still live in Colorado?”

  She nodded. “Colorado Springs.”

  “How far is that from Custer?”

  “It’s about seven hours.”

  I cut the pancake with my fork, then took a bite. “So what I want to know is, how did you find me?”

  “That took some detective work. I picked up your trail in Cody, Wyoming. The clerk at the Marriott hotel was very helpful.”

  “How did you even know I was walking? Or where?”

  “Oh,” she said. “I promised I wouldn’t tell.”

  “You’re not going to tell me?”

  “I made a promise,” she said. “Do you want me to break a promise?”

  “Was it my father?”

  She just looked at me.

  “All right,” I said. “Keep your promise.” I took another bite. Pamela went back to eating, slowly picking at her food.

  After a moment I said, “I’ve thought a lot about our conversation last night.”

  She looked up at me.

  “The thing is, I’ve hated you for as long as I can remember. I suppose I just felt it was my moral obligation to hate you—a way of being loyal to McKale. You know, my friend’s enemy is my enemy.”

  “I understand,” Pamela said.

  “But truth, at least knowing the truth, can change things in an instant.” I looked into Pamela’s eyes. “And the truth is, I don’t know what I would have done in your situation. But I can’t believe that McKale would have been the person she was without those experiences.” My eyes moistened. “And I really loved who she was. Some of our most powerful bonding moments were when she was the most vulnerable and upset that you had left her.

  “Back in Hill City you asked if McKale would have been mine the way she was if you hadn’t been the way you were. The answer is no. And for that I do owe you.”

  Pamela’s eyes welled up with tears.

  “You’ve suffered enough. More than you deserved.” I looked into her eyes. “I forgive you.”

  At first she just stared at me in disbelief, then she began to tremble. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Then she put her face in her hands and cried. I got up and walked to her side of the table and put my arm around her. “It’s time to move on. For both of us.”

  When she could speak, she ask
ed, “Do you think my girl will ever forgive me?”

  “I believe she already has.”

  “You have no idea how much this means to me. I can see why my daughter loved you. You’re a good man.”

  I took her hand. She put her other hand on top of mine. “From the bottom of my heart,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” I replied. “It’s my pleasure.” It truly was. My heart was full of joy.

  After a moment she lifted a napkin from the table and wiped her eyes.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “I need to go back to Custer and get my car. I left it in the hotel parking lot. Hopefully they haven’t towed it.”

  “How will you get there?” I asked.

  “The woman who runs the motel is driving to Rapid City this afternoon. She says she’ll take me. I’m sure I can find a ride from there to Custer.”

  “Then what?”

  “I finish raising my daughter.”

  I smiled. “That sounds like a good plan.”

  “And what about you?” Pamela asked. “You’ll keep on walking?”

  “I’ll keep on walking.”

  She laughed and it was joyful to hear. “You’re crazy, you know?”

  My smile widened. “That’s exactly what your daughter would have said.”

  We spent the next half hour in pleasant conversation, finding similarities between Hadley and McKale. When we’d finished eating I asked Pamela, “What time do you leave for Rapid City?”

  “The woman’s leaving after her shift, around five. She said I could stay in the room until then. How about you?”

  “I’ve got twenty miles to cover today. I’m going to do some grocery shopping then start back out.”

  “Then I won’t keep you any longer,” she said. “Please stop by before you go.”

  “I’ll do that,” I said.

  Pamela leaned forward and put her arms around me. Then she turned and walked out of the restaurant. I watched her go, then walked over to the adjacent market—an eclectic store where I loaded up on basics and a few nonessentials, like a bag of cake doughnuts I knew would never survive my journey, and two bags of horehound candy, a hard-to-find treat I’d developed a taste for as a kid at Knott’s Berry Farm in California. In a moment of weakness, I bought myself a WHERE THE HECK IS WALL DRUG bumper sticker.

  I walked back to my room and finished packing, applying the bumper sticker to the back of my pack. I checked the room twice to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. I felt as if I’d left something there. I guess I had. I knocked on Pamela’s door. She opened quickly.

  “Ready to hit the road?” she asked.

  “Back at it,” I said.

  “At least you’ve got the shoes for it.”

  I smiled. Then I leaned forward and hugged her. “Goodbye, Pamela. Good luck.”

  “Good luck to you too,” she said. She handed me a piece of paper. “That’s my phone number and address. If you’re ever in Colorado, please come see us.”

  I put the paper in my pocket. “I’ll do that. I’d really like to meet Hadley someday.”

  “I’m sure she’d like to meet you. Maybe you could stop by on your way back from Key West.”

  “I’d like that,” I said. “I guess we’ll see.” I ran a hand back through my hair and sighed. “I better go.”

  Pamela leaned forward and we hugged once more.

  “Good-bye,” she said. “Be safe.”

  I slipped my pack on over my shoulders, put on my Akubra hat, then with a furtive smile turned around and began to walk. As I reached the end of the parking lot Pamela called to me.

  “Alan.”

  I turned back.

  “God bless you.”

  I smiled. “Take care, Pamela.” I turned, heading back toward the interstate. I sensed that I really was going to miss her following me.

  C H A P T E R

  Nine

  As we walk our individual life journeys,

  we pick up resentments and hurts, which

  attach themselves to our souls like burrs

  clinging to a hiker’s socks. These stowaways

  may seem insignificant at first, but, over

  time, if we do not occasionally stop and

  shake them free, the accumulation

  becomes a burden to our souls.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  Prior to leaving Wall, I had a conversation with the cashier at the Wall Drug gift shop about the road east and she talked me into taking the Badlands Loop, adding an extra ten miles or so to my journey.

  My pack was heavy again, as I was assured it would be a while before I would find any decent shopping, so I had filled up at Wall with everything I needed.

  Within minutes of leaving Pamela I was back on 90. The morning air was cool and the walking was easy—though I know, in part, because I felt good. In spite of the heaviness of my pack, I felt lighter. Forgiving Pamela had healed a wound I had never acknowledged existed.

  Two miles from Wall I exited 90 for Highway 240, the Badlands Loop. It took me half the day, ten miles of walking, to reach the national park.

  The road passed through a toll station. There was a seven-dollar entrance fee for “nonmotorized” visitors, and the ranger at the booth reminded me that I could only camp in designated areas. Just a half mile in I stopped to see the first of the remarkable formations.

  The native Lakota tribe called the area Makhóšiĉa, which means “bad land.” Early French trappers were a little more descriptive, naming it les mauvaises terres à traverser—the bad lands to cross.

  The Badlands’ name is well deserved. The area is a quagmire of slopes and crevices, slick clay and deep sand, all of which encumbered early travelers through the area.

  Modern roads carve an easily accessible scenic route through the park, but, by nightfall, I was still a long way from any campground. Despite the ranger’s warning I had no choice but to find a place to camp that wasn’t designated as such. Near a spot called Panorama Point, I slid down a small ravine where I couldn’t be seen from the road.

  I ate a can of cold Bush’s Baked Beans, an apple, and the last of my Wall Drug cake doughnuts, which were smashed into crumbs.

  I started early the next morning. By eight o’clock, I reached Fossil Trail, where I paused to examine some of the prehistoric findings, including tortoise shells and saber-tooth tiger bones. I stopped at Cedar Pass Lodge for lunch and water, but passed by the visitors center because I was afraid I would not make it out of the park before dark.

  Near the end of the loop, I came upon a trading post with a giant woodcarving of a woodchuck out front. I picked up a few things for dinner, then sat on the curb next to the giant wood rodent and ate a buffalo hot dog and a bean and cheese burrito that I had warmed in the store’s microwave.

  Then I headed on toward 90, looking for a place to spend the night. On the service road before the freeway was an abandoned building with its sign still intact:

  THE CACTUS FLAT CAFÉ

  The windows were all broken out, and the front door was open, leaning on an angle from its rusted hinges. I looked inside. The place was full of trash. I cleared an area to sleep in at the back of the building and spent an uneventful night amid the trash and rodents.

  The next morning I backtracked a mile to the trading post for breakfast—a sausage biscuit, cheese Danish, and banana—then returned to the service road.

  The day’s highlight was encountering a sign that informed me that the movies Thunderhead—a 1945 movie starring Roddy McDowall—and Starship Troopers—a 1997 movie starring no one—were filmed in the area. Wall Drug billboards were now facing away from me on the opposite side of the highway. They grew sparser the farther I walked from Wall.

  All success is imitated, so with the diminishing of the Wall Drug signs, other businesses posted their own, though most of them were homespun and poorly conceived. There’s a rule in outdoor advertising: a good billboard should never contain more than
seven words, and five or less are preferable. I saw one billboard with seventy-three words. (I was so amazed that I actually stopped to count.) I just shook my head. Who was going to read that at seventy-five miles an hour?

  I ended the day shy of nineteen miles in the tiny town of Kadoka: population 736. I stayed at the America’s Best Value Inn and, at the hotel clerk’s recommendation, ate dinner at Club 27. I had the filet mignon with a baked potato. It wasn’t nearly as good as the filet mignon I had in Hill City, but I wasn’t complaining.

  After the last two days of solitude, I was in the mood to talk to someone. Anyone, really. Unfortunately, my waitress wasn’t, so I just listened in on other diners’ conversations.

  The next morning I ate a ham and cheese omelet at the Nibble Nook Café, then started off. The service road had ended at Kadoka, so I resumed my walk along 90 for another five miles or so until another frontage road appeared.

  A little after noon an old, loaded-down pickup truck sped by me, close enough that the wind of the vehicle nearly knocked me down. The truck disappeared over a slight incline. About twenty minutes later I caught up to the truck. It was pulled over to the side of the road, its hazard lights flashing, the road around it strewn with an eclectic array of items. I surmised that the truck’s cargo had been held in place by a queen-sized mattress, which had flown off.

  The driver was grumbling and cursing as he collected his things, which were scattered over a fifty-yard radius up and down the service road, like a big, chaotic yard sale.

  The man was a little shorter than me and much wider, probably carrying an extra fifty pounds. He wore a bushy beard and a Chicago Bears jersey. He reminded me of the kind of guy you’d see at a football game, shirtless with a painted face and wearing a rainbow Afro. He glanced over at me after throwing a pillow into the truck.