Being Henry David - By Cal Armistead Page 0,83

in smaller letters, BAXTER PEAK, NORTHERN TERMINUS OF THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL. After reading this, I shake my head, thinking of my dad, not sure if I should laugh or cry. Look at me, Dad. I reached the end of the Appalachian Trail before you and I never saw the beginning.

Touching the rough wood with both hands, I gather strength from its solidness. Then I reach into the back waistband of my jeans and pull out the book.

You know where to find me, Henry had said. And it’s true, I do. He’s at Walden Pond. He’s here in Maine. He’s anywhere nature has the power to make me stop and think. And most of all, he’s in this book.

Walden is in worse shape than when I found it on the floor at Penn Station those long weeks ago. Now it’s drenched by the mountain storm. Pages are bent over and torn, and some are missing—the ones Frankie ate and the ones that fell out because I carried it around and thumbed through it so often. I don’t know for sure if it was always mine or if some traveler left it at the train station, but that doesn’t matter now. Thoreau brought me here. I may not be Thoreau reincarnated, but I bet I could live the rest of my life as if I were. Living an authentic, simple life makes a whole lot of sense to me.

And there’s one more thing. If I was Thoreau reincarnated, I bet he would’ve wanted me to complete something he couldn’t in his own lifetime: reach the true summit of Mount Katahdin. So here I am, for both of us.

I set Walden at the base of the sign like a sacred offering to the gods. Then I take from my pocket the smooth white stone I brought from Walden Pond, and set it on top of the book to keep it anchored.

“There you go, Henry,” I say. “You made it.” I stand there for a long time. Then I turn to walk back down the mountain.

Luckily there’s more than one route to and from the summit, so I decide to avoid Knife Edge this time by choosing a different path down the mountain. I’ve walked only a few minutes when I spot a man with a crooked walking stick about fifty feet below me and heading my way. He pauses to take off his straw hat and wipe rain and sweat off his forehead with a red bandana. Something about the way he stands, his black goatee and muscular build, look familiar.

The man looks up at me, shields his eyes against the sun, and waves, the bandana like a banner in his hand.

I wave back in disbelief. “Thomas,” I call out, and I start to laugh. “What are you doing here?”

But of course I know what he’s doing here. It wouldn’t take much for a research librarian–historian to figure out where I was going when I left Concord. After all, he planted the idea in my head to begin with. And now, he has come to find me.

“Dan!” he shouts back. At first I’m startled to hear him use my real name, and Dan instead of Danny, but it’s okay somehow. In fact, I like it. When I climbed up the mountain this morning, I was still Hank. I’m not Hank anymore. But in truth, I’m not Danny either. For good or for bad, I’ll be Dan Henderson from now on. New name, fresh start.

I’m so busy smiling like a goofball and lumbering down the mountain toward Thomas, I almost trip on an outcropping of granite in the middle of the path. By the time I recover and look back to where Thomas waits, there’s another man standing behind him.

It’s a tall man wearing shorts and hiking boots with black shaggy hair poking out from under a baseball cap. I can see the logo from here. The Chicago Cubs. We both stand there, frozen, allowing this stunning reality to break over us.

“Dad?”

“Danny.” My father speaks my name, his voice lifted to my ears by the same wind that nearly pushed me off the mountain. I hold the moment like it’s a paper-winged butterfly, unable to believe the fragile truth of it.

Gravity pulls me down the mountain path, to the place where my father stands and waits, his arms open wide.

I collapse against my father’s chest and he squeezes the breath out of me with his strong arms. He came all this way to find