Race Across The Sky Part 5

"The body you've got is designed to run all day. It's how we hunted. What happened is, we got horses. Carriages. Cars. Evolution works in reverse too. But your body can do it if you want it to."

Shane stepped over a mossy rock and sweat cascaded down his back. "So what's the farthest you've ever gone?"

"I don't keep track. It's not about how far the runs are, it's about what happens during them. The farthest I've gone in an event is a hundred and two miles, at Western States. But I've gone running for days and I have no idea how many miles I went."

"I thought you race these ultramarathons? You sound pretty zen about it, but don't you try to win them?"

"Ultras are different. Those are compet.i.tive, and I absolutely want to win them."

"What's your next one?"

"It's called the Hardrock 100. It goes across thirteen mountain peaks, for a hundred miles. There are set distances and cutoff times you have to make or you're out. You have forty-eight hours to finish it. I'm hoping to get it done in twenty-three." He paused. "Don't look at me like that."

"I can't help it."

Sheepishly, Caleb shrugged. "I love it, Shane."

"What do you love about it?"

"When I'm running like that, pushing myself to win, it feels like what I should be doing. It's the most honest thing I've ever experienced."

"What do you mean by honest? Like you can't cheat?"

"I mean the ultras don't care what you look like, or what you believe, or what you do for a living. The only thing that matters is if you can control your body, and your mind. A banker won't beat a janitor unless he can do that. And every race, I experience the best moments of my life. Also the worst," he laughed.

They walked farther into the trails, and the insects began to find them. As mosquitoes covered his arms, and the air thickened, Shane found his good feelings turning sour.

"So at what point are you done?"

A look appeared across his brother's face, a noncomprehension that bordered on disdain.

"Done with what?"

"Seeing how far you can go?"

"Why would I ever be done?"

"Because you're giving up so much for this."

"What am I giving up?"

"Seeing your family, for one thing."

"Start-up founders, restaurant owners, lawyers trying to make partner, they all go months without seeing their families. But you wouldn't ask them when they're going to be done. We all give up things to pursue the things that matter to us."

"I'm giving up my last weekend with Janelle before the baby right now," Shane panted.

"Right. Because you want to see how far you can go."

"Go with what?"

"You want to see if you can do it," Caleb nodded.

"Do what?"

"Get me to leave here with you."

Shane stopped and put his hands on his knees. He took a long breath, to give himself a moment, and because he needed it.

"Come on"-Caleb stared at him openly-"I'm ready for the speech."

"I don't have a f.u.c.king speech for you."

"Okay." Caleb turned and began walking up the mountain again, as easily as if these were his first steps of the morning.

Shane scrambled behind him. "I just don't see why you can't do what you love and stay connected with the world."

"I'm more connected to the world than I can ever explain to you." He gestured to the thin aspens around them, the trail, the gra.s.s. "We just define the world differently. I do what I love every day. Isn't that a great thing to you?"

He wiped sweat from his forehead, trying to keep up. "Sure, of course."

"To make this life possible, I need to be around people who live the same way. I need coaching, training partners, a specific routine. Mack provides these things for me, and he just asks that I agree to a few basic rules that aren't so different from the ones at any company."

Shane held his palms up. "Okay."

Caleb stepped off the trail into the brush. Their dad, Fred, had always taught them never to leave a trail, and so Shane hesitated. Then he ducked beneath the nettles after him, breathing in the moldy exhaled breath of the undergrowth. When he looked up, wary of stray branches, he saw that they had arrived at a small clearing.

"You meditate?" Caleb asked casually, hands on his hips.

"Janelle tried to teach me once. I started thinking about her b.o.o.bs."

"Just count to two. Over and over."

"That's not going to make me think about b.o.o.bs?" Shane grinned. He was aware of a certain manic ascent in his voice. He attributed it to his low blood sugar.

Caleb sank to the ground, crossed his legs, and stared ahead, his eyes defocusing. Shane watched him with some disbelief. Looking at the sunlight breaking through the chocolate branches, he felt an intense longing to speak with Janelle. He spent some time thinking about the baby, wondering how much it would change him.

"Hey." Somewhat louder, Shane said, "Hey, it's been like an hour."

Caleb remained in the same position. Then Shane turned his back on his brother and made his way through the dense brush toward where he thought the trail might be. Once he found it, getting back should be simple, he thought. But he would need to be careful; this weak, it would be easy to become lost.

The insects seemed to have tripled around him. Sweat streamed down Shane's neck; he felt in danger of pa.s.sing out. Far off he could see a small pinp.r.i.c.k of blue. A b.u.t.terfly? Some runner's shirt? A branch scratched his cheek hard, startling him. A Clif Bar, he cursed. He might have been offered a G.o.dd.a.m.n Clif Bar. He placed his hands back on his hips and turned around, disoriented. He hurried his pace, afraid it might get dark.

The more exhausted he became, the angrier he felt. He still had no clue why Caleb had asked him here; he had a.s.sumed it was to leave the house, but now he was fairly sure it wasn't. A long time later he saw a clearing far below that looked familiar. Stumbling down the mountain base, he made out the wooden cabin in the distance. He experienced a fierce, visceral hatred for it.

His rental car was parked at its side; he could get in, eat a big steak in Boulder, drive to the airport, and be home in time to sleep beside Janelle, wrap his arm around her belly, and feel the kicking heels of whoever was inside waiting for them. But first he would raid their kitchen.

The trail widened into the field, and he walked the open half mile back to the house. Shane marched up the steps to the back door. In the kitchen, a short, dark woman with a long black braided ponytail stood over the sink. He stood in the doorway, streaming with sweat.

She smiled. "Hey, you're Caley's brother?"

He shook his head, breathing impossibly hard. "I'm really thirsty."

The woman stood on her toes, opened a cabinet, and took out a pint gla.s.s with the faded words ROCKING HORSE TAVERN printed on its side. She poured tap water and handed it to him. Shane chugged and refilled it three times.

"I'm Rae," she almost laughed.

"Anything to eat here, Rae? I'm starving."

"Orphans in Sudan are starving. You're hungry."

"Crackers? Banana?"

"'Fraid not. Supper's in an hour."

"How do you guys live?"

"How do you?" she smiled, amused.

Shane shrugged agreeably.

"Your brother's one of my favorite people. He's always so busy. I don't see him as much as I'd like to."

"Me neither." He hoped the resentment in his tone was apparent. "Where's the shower?"

"Upstairs, to your left."

Shane went weakly through the kitchen door. The main room of the house was enormous. People milled about with what seemed to him to be very clear purpose. He looked for June but didn't see her. On the stairs he had to grab both railings to steady himself.

"Caley take you out hiking?" a grinning young guy asked him.

Shane nodded.

"Don't let him brutalize you." The guy squatted beside him. "I'm Kevin Yu. Caleb's roommate."

They shook hands. Carefully, Shane asked, "How's he doing?"

"Great. He rocks, man." Kevin waved some people over. "Hey, meet Caleb's brother."

This drew a crowd. People gathered around the stairs, peppered him with questions. f.u.c.k, Shane thought, my brother's a Beatle.

He went back down to the couch with them. Why not? No one else here seemed to care about showering, and he was cooling down with the house as the light faded out its windows. He listened to stories about his brother, insane races they had run, up mountains, through snowstorms and mudslides, on broken bones and under blazing sun. What concerned him was that none of these people seemed crazy. A couple of them had that weird gleam in the eye he had been expecting, like very committed Evangelicals, but nothing made him feel uncomfortable.

And suddenly everyone turned toward the front door.

A small man bounded into the house with the energy of a Labrador. His black beard was patchy, as if it had been stunted in childhood. He wore a swirling blue and yellow tie-dye, damp with sweat. But mostly Shane noticed his eyes. They were made of a blue unlike any other he had seen before. As if they were filled with souls.

Shane smiled and said, "Hi, Mack."

6.

"Hey," Mack cried gleefully, "the brother."

Shane considered him: he was much smaller and slighter than he had expected. With the ponytail, the ungroomed beard, he might be sitting at a bar in North Beach, complaining about gentrification. Instead, he ruled seventeen impossibly conditioned athletes with a glance, possessed a reputation for faith healing, and according to Internet reports, could outrun any of them on their daily eight-hour sojourns.

As Mack walked into the house, the others seemed to part to make way for him. Shane stood and shook his hand, and followed him toward the mantel, where two younger housemates were starting the evening's fire.

"So finally," Mack grinned. "What took you so long?"

Shane stared at him. Was that mischief in his tone? He decided to return to his policy of respect. "Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here."

"No worries. What do you do for work, Shane?"

"I'm in sales. Just starting for a biotechnology company."

Mack's blue eyes intensified. "Biotechnology? Let me ask you, I read this thing about biology once. It said the single-cell organism is the most perfect form of life on this planet. If you lost all the weak parts of us, the parts that are vulnerable to attack, to disease, and stripped us to our purest being, that's what we would be. A virus. The amoeba isn't what life's evolving from, it's what life's evolving to. You ever heard that?"

"I haven't. It kind of makes sense though."

"Yeah?" Mack asked happily. "I thought so. Hey so, where's big bro at?"

"Meditating on the trail."

A warm bell sounded, and the sixteen present members of the Happy Trails Running Club appeared. They came from outside, upstairs, from places Shane had never noticed, and sat in front of the fireplace in a circle.

"So, we have a guest with us tonight," Mack announced to them. "Caleb's bro, Mister Shane."

Immediately two members of the circle shifted, making s.p.a.ce. He sat down appreciatively.

"Hi, Shane," came a chorus of voices from around him. Pats on the back, nods and smiles from across the circle.

Shane came alive a little, unable to resist the vibe. In its cloistered, warm ritual it reminded him of visiting a friend's fraternity house. They had established their own patterns, which happens, he thought, whenever people live together.

Rae, whom he'd met in the kitchen, and a taut young man with a buzz-cut named Hank brought wooden bowls filled with something that smelled very strong. Shane took his with a grateful thank-you and inhaled its steam, marvelously happy for it. He guessed it would be the healthiest dinner he had eaten in a while.

The conversation revolved around who was running tomorrow, and who was working. A woman talked about a dying deer she'd seen in Rocky Mountain National Park. The bowl held a thick stew of vegetables and herbs. Shane devoured it. When he stood to get more, Kevin quickly touched his arm.

"One helping."