A Child's Walk in the Wilderness by Paul Molyneaux

Author:Paul Molyneaux
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stackpole Books

A few days later we come down out of the mountains into Hot Springs, North Carolina—the trail runs straight through town. Everyone shows up on cue: Popeye; Spoon; a couple of new guys, one of them six-foot-seven, named Giant, another with a southern accent, Louisiana Matt; Hagar; Poncho; and White Beard. We fill a couple of tables at the Smoky Mountain Diner and chow down on cheeseburgers, fries, and pie.

Popeye tells us about the bear cage. “It worked great,” he says, “except the bears wouldn't go away and we couldn't get out for a while. It was all rain and fog when we got to Clingmans Dome; we couldn't see a thing.”

We drink sweet tea, as the locals call iced tea, and wonder about visiting the hot springs that give the town its name. Too expensive, we all agree; better to go tubing in the French Broad River.

We're hiking on a credit card at this point; every expense is more debt and has to be considered, and avoided completely if possible. We're walking a fine line between being thru-hikers and being woodland hoboes, and to save money, Venado and I camp outside town, on some flat ground across the river. Heading west, the French Broad flows into the Holston River and forms the Tennessee River, which, together with the Little Tennessee, flows into the Ohio, then the Mississippi, and finally the gulf.

“Can we go swimming, Poppy?”

“Sure.”

Crossing the bridge back into town, we look down to see a group of teenagers tubing beneath us. A young woman in a bikini lies spread across a black inner tube, an American summer beauty.

“Papa, come on.”

Under the bridge, we change into our shorts and wade into the water. Venado tries to coax me in deeper, but I resist.

“I don't like the smell of this river, Venado.”

“It's fine.”

“No it's not. Come on out of there.”

“No Poppy, it's fine.”

“No it's not; it smells bad and I'm not swimming in it.” I back out and start getting dressed. Reluctantly Venado gets out of the water, though he continues giving me a hard time.

“Papa, it's fine.”

“We have plenty of clean streams to swim in; we don't need to swim in this river.”

We linger for an extra day in Hot Springs; in exchange for free beds and board we pick potato beetles off the potato plants in Elmer Hall's garden at the Sunnybank Inn—better known as Elmer's. At suppertime we find Elmer's table well laden, and we meet GoldenRay, one of several deaf and/or blind hikers attempting to thru-hike the AT, and we hit it right off, passing notes back and forth in a notebook GoldenRay keeps handy. Later that evening, I pick out a movie for Venado and me to watch on Elmer's DVD player, Songcatcher, based on the true story of Olive Dame Campbell, who collected songs from singers of the region—discovering many links to the oldest English folk music.

Elmer finds us watching the movie. “Did you know about this house when you chose that movie?”

We look at him, faces blank.

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