Eleanor tilted her head back and looked up—way, way up—at her goal.

“Why does that summit get further away the more we hike?” she grumbled. “I swear it’s not obeying the laws of physics.”

“Of course it is.” Anne took another gulp of water from her bottle. “It obeys the laws of visual perception. Your brain is merely interpreting a changing set of visual data.”

“Thank you, Ms. Science Teacher.” Eleanor gave her partner a pressed-lips look, but Anne was paying no attention.

“Oh, Ellie, look,” she breathed, and Eleanor followed her pointing finger. At first she couldn’t see what it was that had Anne so rapt, but then the movement caught her eye. A hawk was soaring over the flanks of the mountain beneath them, the mottled brown of its back and wings blending perfectly with the boulder-strewn landscape.

“Damn. I’ve never seen one from above.” She watched in amazement as the hawk flashed across her field of view, taking mere seconds to cross a distance that they’d toiled over for an hour. Then it vanished around the curve of the mountain, refusing to reappear though she stared after it in fervent hope. With a small sigh she gave up, only to find Anne grinning at her.

“Now wasn’t that worth the last hour?” asked Anne.

Eleanor tried to keep a grumpy expression on her face and failed utterly. “Yes, it was,” she admitted. She paused, part of her wanting to apologize for her cross attitude. But if she did that, Anne would ask what was bothering her, and Eleanor wasn’t ready to answer. This hike had been her idea; the last seven months of training had been at her urging, and she was damned if she’d admit her self-doubts.

Turning away from Anne’s knowing gaze, she busied herself stashing her snack bag and water bottle. Zipping the pack shut, she pulled it onto her shoulders, fastened the hip belt, and picked up her walking poles. “Ready for the rest?”

“Hold on.” Anne was rounding up her second pole, which had rolled off the rock she’d propped it against. With a muffled groan, she bent down. “Damn, my knees are feeling this.”

Eleanor held out her hand and helped her partner up. “Mine too,” she said, finding it much easier to admit now that Anne had gone first. “Funny how all those miles on the Stairmaster just don’t add up to this.”

“Or even all those miles of walking,” said Anne.

“City sidewalks.” Eleanor turned and began plodding up the steep trail. “We knew it wouldn’t be the same.”

“But it was the best we could do,” said Anne from behind her. “And of course there’s also the elevation difference. We’d be winded even walking on level ground up here. Our blood just isn’t adapted to the thin air.”

“Maybe we should move to Denver. Then we’d be in practice walking to the grocery store and back.”

Anne laughed, but it was rather gaspy. “A little high-altitude advantage isn’t a nearly good enough reason to move to Denver, darling. I’m not giving up our riverside condo.”

Eleanor was already too out of breath to respond. As far up the mountain as they were, it took only a few steps for her breathing to become labored, and she slipped into the mantra that she’d learned from the backpacking magazine. Step, breathe. Step, breathe. It was a mountaineer’s strategy—moving at a slow but steady pace that the body could maintain over a long distance. Step, breathe. Step, breathe. Behind her she could hear Anne’s harsh breaths; they were breathing almost in perfect tandem.

With her eyes fixed firmly on the trail—the better not to see that ever-retreating summit—she tortured herself by thinking about her aching knees, her right hip, her sore heels, and her exhausted thigh muscles. Where had she ever gotten the idea that this would be fun? It was just a high-altitude Stairmaster, without the benefit of the juice bar.

Step, breathe.

An odd whistling sound brought her head up, and she was startled to see the hawk floating straight toward them. At least, she thought it was the same one. It was above them now, but only by a matter of thirty feet or so, and when it soared over their heads she swore she could see it looking at them. The thing was huge; much larger than she’d thought at first. Good heavens, it could have made off with a small dog. She and Anne both spun in place, watching until it once again vanished around the curve of the mountain.

“My God,” Anne marveled. “Did you hear that? That was the sound of flight! The sound of air flowing over its feathers. I can’t believe it. I’ve never heard that before.”

“You are such a city girl,” teased Eleanor. “I heard that sound often enough when our chickens flapped their wings.”

“Oh, Ellie, it’s not the same thing and you know it. She wasn’t flapping her wings; she was just soaring. What a perfect, perfect design.”

Eleanor smiled at her enthusiasm; sometimes Anne seemed younger than she was. “You’re certain it’s a she?”

“Yes.” Anne nodded emphatically. “And I think she was telling us something.”

“What was that?”

“She was saying, ‘Keep going. You’re almost there.’”

Eleanor laughed out loud. “You’re full of it.”

“Well, what do you think she was saying?”

Watching Anne’s expectant face, Eleanor felt a happy little lift in her heart. “I think she was saying, ‘Welcome to my land, strangers. You have my blessing.’”

Such a flight of fancy was quite out of the ordinary for her, but Anne’s wide grin was ample reward for her daring. “I think you’re right,” Anne said. “And look, so am I.” She pointed, and Eleanor was astonished to see that they had somehow halved the distance to the summit. Why, it actually looked within reach now.

“How’d we do that?” she asked in blank surprise.

“Stepping and breathing.” Anne lifted her water bottle with a flourish, drank deeply, and wiped her mouth. “Shall we finish it off?”

With a sudden surge of confidence, Eleanor pulled out her own bottle. “I believe we shall.”

They hiked perhaps another twenty minutes when the sound of sliding rocks alerted them to another hiker on the trail ahead. Moments later a young man came into view, his long legs eating up the ground. They stepped aside to let him pass, but he slowed to a stop and looked at them with a surprised smile.

“Well, hello!” he said. “You’re almost there.”

“We know,” said Eleanor with some asperity. She had eyes; she could see for herself.

Oblivious to her tone, the man continued, “Have you seen the golden eagle? She’s been soaring around here for the last hour.”

“That was an eagle?” Anne’s eyes were enormous, and the man seemed pleased with her reaction.

“Oh yes. They’re not unusual in these parts, but it’s still a thrill to see one.” He warmed to Anne’s obvious interest. “I like them much better than bald eagles. Baldies are thieves at heart—they’d just as soon steal food from another bird as catch their own. But goldens are consummate hunters. I think they’re the ultimate bird of prey. And so beautiful, don’t you think?”

“How do you know it’s a she?” asked Anne.

“Because of her size. Female raptors are quite a bit larger than males.”

“Really?” Eleanor was intrigued in spite of herself. “Why?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not true of most other birds. Raptors are different.”

“Are you a biologist?” asked Anne.

“Guilty as charged.” He gave them an easy grin. “I work for the Forestry Service; they pay me to climb up and down these mountains. But today’s my day off, so I went to see an old friend.” He gestured toward the peak. “I climb it every summer. This is a special place. But then, I think you’re about to find that out for yourselves.”

“Yes, we are,” stated Eleanor with certainty. Something in her tone must have gotten through to him, because he dipped his head in an oddly old-fashioned salute.

“Then I’ll leave you to it. There’s nobody else up there; you’ve got the summit to yourselves.”

“Oh good,” said Anne. “That’s what we were hoping for.”

With a last smile and wave, the man set off again, loping down the trail as if his knees were made of springs. Anne and Eleanor faced forward, and this time Eleanor didn’t even need the step, breathe mantra, because every step brought her visibly closer to the summit, and her excitement was overwhelming her fatigue. They were starting to come into the view as well, and it kept getting more and more glorious, and then she realized that there were no more steps to take. They were there.

Anne came up beside her, and for several minutes they both just turned in place, staring at the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view.

“Lovely,” whispered Anne. Eleanor could only nod silently. She’d dreamed of this for so long, and now that she was here she could hardly believe it. All of her aches and pains, her tired lungs and her weariness were of no consequence; she was here.

“We did it,” she said in wonder.

Anne put an arm around her waist and hugged her close. “Yes, we did.” There was a note of pride in her voice that made Eleanor feel rather warm, and she turned on impulse to pull her partner in with both arms, their packs making the hug a bit awkward.

“I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have here than you,” she said, and kissed her. “Thank you for putting up with me.”

“Well, I’ve been doing that for a long time. Why stop now?” Anne smiled as she pushed her away. “Enough of that, we’ve got a toast to make.” She shrugged out of her pack and Eleanor followed suit, her eyebrows nearly crawling off her forehead when Anne pulled out a miniature bottle of champagne and two plastic cups.

“What in the hell—”

Anne pushed the cups into her hands. “I couldn’t let this go by without a proper celebration, now could I? And I must say I’ll be glad to drink it, because this bottle was damned heavy.” She draped her scarf over the bottle’s neck and began untwisting the wire basket.

“Good heavens, Anne.” Eleanor watched in bemusement. “I can’t believe you carried that all the way up here.”

A loud pop startled them both, and the scarf jerked into the air before falling to the rocks, the cork trapped in its folds. Anne held up the bottle. “Smart, eh? I didn’t want to litter with the cork.”

Eleanor could only nod as she held out the cups, which were soon full to the brim with foaming champagne. Anne stashed the empty bottle in her pack, took a cup from Eleanor’s hand and held it up. “To your birthday,” she said. “And to the woman I’ll love and admire to the end of my days.”

“I hope that’s a long time yet.” Eleanor tapped her cup to Anne’s and drank. “Hm. Not bad for warm champagne.”

“I know. I couldn’t figure out how to keep it cold.”

“I think I like it warm.” Anne looked at her askance, and Eleanor grinned. “Thank you, love. For coming with me, for bringing champagne…and for believing in my outrageous dream.”

“I believed in you,” said Anne.

Eleanor nodded. She knew that; had counted on it, in fact, for a good many years now. Wrapping an arm around Anne’s waist, she took another sip of her drink as they gazed over the incredible scenery. The reality of precisely where they were standing began to sink in, and she laughed in a sudden burst of giddiness.

“So,” she said, “what shall we do for my seventy-first birthday?”

 

 

~ fin ~

 

 

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