Since Summer complains that she needs to use a public restroom after drinking an enormous soda, Reagan decides to pull off the highway. After passing a run-down gas station, we spot the downtown area easily enough. Kendrick was right: It looks like a set from an old Western movie. A sign even brags that one was filmed here in the 1980s.
The Gold Rush museum looks pretty shabby and has an entrance fee. We agree to forgo that and head to the Bullion General Store instead, parking alongside a line of travel trailers in front of a wooden hitching post—no horses, alas—and a water trough filled with planted cacti.
Inside, the spacious store is bustling with tourists, jammed from floor to ceiling with goods for sale—everything from old-fashioned candy and brown bottles of sarsaparilla, to gold-nugget jewelry and a mining cart filled with polished stones. It also smells like peanut butter fudge, which makes me hungry. Peanut butter is my weakness.
The candy counter has a line, so while Summer looks for a restroom with Reagan, and the boys are magnetically drawn to a display of mining pickaxes—complete with a cardboard standee of a cartoon old-timey prospector—I meander around the aisles until I’m in an outdoor gear section. A sign advertising “bear vaults” catches my attention. Or maybe it’s the gigantic stuffed bear that’s standing on two legs with its arms raised. A sign hanging around its neck reads KINGSLY THE BEAR.
“Gross,” I whisper, seeing that part of its dusty fur is ripped. It also smells funky. But honestly, I’d take all the motley smells in this place 100 percent over the SUV, where Brett’s aftershave was starting to give me a headache.
“You have one, right?” a deep voice says.
Lennon steps next to me like a ghost from the shadows.
“Jesus, sneak up on people much?” I complain under my breath. “Have one what?”
He points to the canisters lining a wooden cubby on the wall. A pleasant scent wafts from his clothes. “Bear vault.”
“Not planning on capturing any bears, so no.”
“They’re for storing food, foolish human.”
I give him a sidelong glance. He’s holding a square of candy inside wax paper. When he takes a bite, I realize why he smells so nice. Peanut butter fudge.
“So good,” he mumbles. He knows I’m a PB addict. At least, he used to know. Maybe he forgot and is completely oblivious that me watching him eat this is total food porn.
I ignore his little moan of ecstasy. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Juggling his fudge, he grabs a black barrel-shaped canister off the shelf and flips open a hinged lid. “Bear vault, to store your food. Bears can smell food from a couple miles away. Not even kidding. They will tear down cabin doors and break car windows to get their grub on. You have to keep everything inside one of these babies. Food. Toiletries. Anything with a strong scent, like Brett’s cologne.”
I give Lennon a dirty look. Brett’s wearing aftershave, not cologne. At least, I think. Who wears cologne? I mean, other than my cranky grandpa John. That’s my dad’s homophobic and slightly racist father, who thinks everyone should “speak English.” My grandpa Sam doesn’t speak English, but he sure as hell doesn’t wear cologne.
“I’m sure the glamping compound knows how to keep bears out of food,” I tell Lennon.
“They do, which is why no food is allowed in the tents, unless it’s in a bear vault,” he says, crinkling the wax paper as he peels it back for another bite of candy.
I hold up an invisible phone and pretend to talk into it. “Hey, Siri, is Lennon full of shit? What’s that? Oh, he is. Great. Thank you.”
“Hey, Siri? Is everything I just said true?” he says, playing along. He pretends to wait for a response and then talks into the bear canister. “Why, yes, Lennon. It most certainly is. You’re in a Bear Zone. It’s against federal law to store unprotected food.”
“That law sounds completely made-up,” I tell him.
“Didn’t you read the rules?”
What rules?
Lennon rolls his eyes toward the ceiling. “I also emailed Brett a list of things we’ll need on the trail. He said he was going to share it with the group.”
What list? I’m suddenly worried that I was left out of the loop. Forgotten. And this just reignites my anxieties about whether my presence is wanted on this trip. But I’m not telling Lennon this.
“Reagan bought a lot of stuff for this week,” I report. “But I don’t remember any bear containers. She’s been camping here before, so maybe she knows something you don’t. Maybe we don’t need them.”
Lennon mumbles an unintelligible curse under his breath. “We’ll definitely need them when we go backpacking.” He holds the canister behind his neck to demonstrate. It’s about the same size as his head—too big. “You can strap it to the top of your pack like this, or down at the bottom, which might be better for people prone to balance problems.” He smirks at me with his eyes.
I fantasize about bashing his big head with the stupid bear vault. “Why are you here?”
“Why are any of us here, Zorie? Life is a mystery.”
I groan. “On this trip.”
“Oh,” he says innocently. He’s not smiling, but there’s a fraction of humor behind his eyes. “The cologne bandit invited me. I’m ‘the coolest,’ apparently,” he says making air quotes with one hand while he takes another bite of fudge.
Again with the snark. Why is he hanging out with Brett if he hates him so much?
“But you knew I was coming?” I probe.
“I did.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
He shrugs. “I only recently decided to go.”
Is that true? I remember back to when Reagan first told me about off-trail backpacking and her not being sure if Brett’s “friend” who told him about this bucket-list hidden waterfall was committed to coming.
“Why?” I ask.
“I have my reasons.”
“Which are . . . ?”
Lennon stares at his fudge for a long moment. Then he seems to change his mind about what he was going to say and hands me the open canister. “Get this. And maybe a bear bell,” he says, pointing to a display of big silver bells designed to be clipped to a backpack. “It gives bears a gentle warning that you’re in the area, so that you don’t surprise them. A surprised bear is a defensive bear, and a defensive bear kills.”
Is he serious? I think he is, but I’m not totally sure. And before I can ask for clarification or point out that he’s avoiding my question, he retrieves something from his pocket and dumps it inside the open canister. Then he walks away.
I look inside the canister. Sitting at the bottom is a square of peanut butter fudge wrapped in wax paper.
What am I supposed to think about this?
I retrieve the fudge and return the canister to the display shelf, abandoning Kingsly the Bear to catch up with the others. Just because Lennon cries bear vault, doesn’t mean I really need it. It’s insanely expensive. Besides, Lennon has a penchant for being super technical and obsessive about details. I think he’s exaggerating the urgency of bear protection.
Probably.
At the last second, I double back and grab a silver bear bell off the rack.
Better safe than sorry.
Part II
7