Date: 2004-03-31
From: Georgia

To: Maine
Miles today: 13.0
Weather: broken clouds

Six of us crammed into Wessar Mtn shelter. Sarge, Little Engine,Boudreau, Doug, Tinker and me. It's been brought to my attention thatI need to start giving mileages. Okay. Wednesday, March 31, 04Mile 127, Wessar Bald Shelter; 18 miles covered today Boudreau the "sobo" or south bounder is telling the story of the originof his name, of one John Baptiste Boudreau, his apparent 5th generationgreat grandfather. Somewhere in the story there's talk of grandpaBoudreau selling in the slave trade. Sarge, black and big and 72 andonce a Marine Sergeant, don't sling bullshit: "Slaves are slaves,Boudreau, but lets just get on with this story." I want to tell the story of my day. I walked in snow all day today. Iwalked in a blizzard. I walked in a period of sunshine when the sunmelted the snow on the branches and snow avalanched down on the traillike a frozen waterfall. Boudreau's story goes on and on. I am sureit is a good story. But I walked eighteen miles today! And I want torest. I want to write and then rest. To varying degrees, the othersare listening. Doug later tells that the story kept his mind off thebitter cold. Tinker must be listening because when, after like an hourof exposition, Boudreau poses a question to his captive icicleaudience: "And what do you think those secret orders said?" TInkeryells out, "Kill him!" And so they did. Sarge later told me he hadhis earplugs in by then. Little Engine keeps murmuring "uhum" from herface-down position in her mummy bag, either a good listener or apolite girl. My god. The story is finally over! But not before we got to hearthree soldiers sawed in half and boudreau's five times gg grandfatherbashed to bits "on the wheels" as it were. What a fucking gorynightmare. I can't even think of my day now. It's gone. I've lostit. Eighteen miles my greatest achievement, bashed to bits by a longand passionate story about , well, how a man got his trail name. Oh,well. tomorrow is another day. In the silence following the story,Boudreau farts long and loud. It seems the perfect punctuation to hispassionately told but too-long tale. Beside me to my left LittleEngine and Sarge. Sarge has hiked the trail from end to end beforeand now hikes a thousand or so miles of it every year since. Hecertainly seems to deserve his trail name. I got wet and cold as helltoday. Coming into the shelter I had to move quick to get out of wetclothes and into what little dry stuff I had, and then of course intomy bag. Dinner was a mix of chicken noodle soup, dried potatoes anddried refried beans. It was delicious and warmed me so inside. Myshoes are soaked and I doubt they'll be any drier by morning. Of myjust three pairs of socks, only one pair is mostly dry. I have themhere in my bag with me to finish the job. The temp outside is likelyin the low twenties. It was twenty eight most of the day, through snowand snow and more snow. I hiked today without gloves thanks to my oneMasterCard, a Paypal card, being denied at the supply store back atRainbow Springs. And today more than ever my trekking poles wereessential, which meant having to have my hands exposed. I hiked tenhours almost without stop. Today was the most foul-weathered, arduousday yet, but in many ways one of the best. Postscript:In the morning Boudreau is gone. If I had to swear one way or another,I would say that Boudreau wasn't of this world. Boudreau was anX-file. There was just too much about Boudreau that didn't fit, or didfit, as it were, into some mystical scheme to make us all believe hewas there in the flesh when in fact he wasn't. His skin for instance:he was ghostly white. And the whole southbound thing: what a perfectexcuse for why we'd never see him again after that night. He arrivedlate, nearly dark, high atop a haunted mountain and met us all when ourminds were blown from battling the elements and thus not toodiscerning. And I have heard of the dead that they can't sleephead-to-head with the living: Boudreau, in a move I found quite odd,slept with his head at my feet. You see, I believe in ghosts, and Ibelieve that alleged southbound hiker Boudreau is in fact the lingeringspirit of the man he spoke so passionately of. I believe the spiritwho visited Sarge, Little Engine, Doug, Tinker and me that night wasnone other than John Baptiste Boudreau himself. For John Baptiste wasa half-breed Indian at a time when the French still owned the LouisianaPurchase, and his work as peacekeeper between the French and the nativetribes were of great importance. But the French killed him anyway. Andfor days now we've been hiking over lands soaked in the blood ofnatives, French, English, and Civil War soldiers. Places with nameslike Indian Grave Gap and Blood Mountain. John Baptiste came to tellus his tale, and I was too tired to listen. ¢RSM For the full story of Rick's journey, visit Jigglebox.com