El Paso County, Colorado. 1967
El Paso County, Colorado. 1967. Sixteen-year-old Martin and his thirty-seven-year-old father were climbing the east slope of Cheyenne Mountain. His father looked back at Martin, who had fallen far behind him on the rocky trail. “Double time,” he said in a gruff voice.
Martin was walking slowly, a backpack on his back, his chest heaving beneath a light red vest. His shaggy bangs hung over his light blue eyes. At a stand of trees, he halted and leaned against the trunk of a pine.
“Can’t you keep up?” asked his father, standing on a ledge, grasping the straps of his large hiking backpack.
Martin looked up at his father, and shook his head. His lips were cracked and red, and his forehead and cheeks were sunburnt. He slung his backpack to the ground. As his father walked down to him, Martin took a felt-covered canteen out of his backpack and unscrewed its metal cap. “I don’t think I can make it,” said Martin, looking back at the way they had come, a trail which disappeared at fifty meters into a thicket of pines.
His father placed his hand on Martin’s shoulder. “Son,” he said, “you don’t look back, ever.”
Martin took a long drink from his canteen before returning it to his backpack. His father picked up Martin’s backpack and loosened its straps. He front-loaded it over his chest, and then he tested its weight before tightening the straps. “Ready?” asked his father, reaching out to Martin with his hand.
Martin looked up at his father. His father was smiling warmly at him. The wind tossed Martin’s caramel brown hair over his eyes. “Ready,” he said, as he grasped his father’s hand.
