SHE IS A SPIDER, MANY-LEGGED, joints silently folding along the switchbacks. Ankles supported by the hiking boots she broke in at Choke Canyon State Park over the summer, rubber soles now gripping loose gravel on the trail up to Guadalupe Peak. The highest point in Texas—and she can’t even see it from here.
She must wind up another mountain first, up and up and up. Winter sunrise, a tangerine sky, a little boy’s cheeks smeared orange with ragu. Hiking poles strapped to her wrists, fingers wrapped around molded cork handles, rubber feet and her own shoulders bearing load on the incline. All that practice on the used StairMaster she bought on Facebook Marketplace, and she may as well have rolled out of bed this morning and decided to drive eight hours, leaving the mesquite-snarled flatness
