USFS 2019 — Part 1, Chapter 3

I left the house around 6pm, still without any sign of Pete and Elliott, but I knew they couldn’t have been far from Challis at that point. Normally, I wouldn’t have felt the need to let anybody know where I’d be in the event that we might miss each other. And I suppose it wasn’t necessary in this case. Pete and Elliott were both acute observers and knew as well as anybody what to look for to guess at my whereabouts within a reasonable confidence interval. When I was at the Challis house, my running shoes and hydration pack lived by the door when they weren’t being used. Noting their absence, Elliott and Pete would know what I’d left to do.

Even knowing there were no expectations around checking in, I sent Elliott a message. I wasn’t sure that he’d see it, or care if he did. But I thought there was a chance he’d welcome the option to meet on neutral ground given the exceptional circumstances. So, I told him to feel free to saddle up Gertie, my old VW Rabbit, if he wanted to intercept me and that otherwise, I’d be back before dark.

In my years in the Mid-Atlantic states, I had been made aware of the stifling whiteness of endurance activity as a pastime. As a way of giving me a hard time, one of my Black classmates in undergrad had taken to asking me what I was running from when he learned that I had a habit of going on multi-hour runs. The premise of the question was lost on me for a long time and I could tell I’d exhausted his patience when, to bring me up to speed, he asked me if I had ever learned to run from the police growing up. I put it together pretty quickly after that, but not without feeling implicated and embarrassed that: a.) it had taken me that long to understand the question, and b.) I had bought into Idaho’s thoroughgoing program of colorblindness at the expense of never thinking too deeply about how obscenely white the Northwest U.S. was. And although this wasn’t the case immediately, I felt doubly implicated and embarrassed later when I realized that: c.) all my life, it had been people of color like that friend and, to some extent, Pete as the partner of an Indigenous woman, who’d hand-held me through examining the extent to which racism was still alive and well.

Nonetheless, that old classmate left me with insight that almost always held up: White folks—and white men in particular—seldom ran from anything. They weren’t prey. When they ran, it was because they chose to. Nobody was forcing their hand. Over time, I figured out on my own what was going on in rare instances that the wisdom didn’t hold up: When the white bourgeoisie found something to run from, it was usually a monster of their own invention. The manifestations aren’t always literal, but oil spills, toxic waste, nuclear weapons, corporate wrongdoing, and mass incarceration all seem like compelling cases in point.

Even though I wasn’t a dude, this whole perspective on running grated me to the point of distraction for a time. So, as I often did with my ego-tinged, half-assed ethical crises, I ran it by Pete. I bet I even prefaced it with “Can I run something by you?” because dad jokes are among the few things I’ve always loved without reservation despite my prevailing conviction that everything else about life was an overrated dumpster fire.

Pete was over at the house when I asked. I was in undergrad but back in town working for the summer. I don’t remember the particulars other than that it was just him and me on the front porch, and I want to say he was in the middle of eating or drinking something. That’s because the closest thing to a sideways look Pete was capable of was a pronounced pause in whatever he was in the middle of doing. Were he eating, it would seem like he was trying to avoid snarfing anything in case I was about to say something funny or straight-up asinine. But the general effect held for other activities. I’d seen this caesura with about any task I could think of him doing—reading, writing, painting (in the Bob Ross sense, though I’m sure he’s just as capable in the Sherwin Williams sense too), fixing a lawnmower, starting a fire, hacking up a felled tree, untangling gear, changing out the leader on a flyrod, pulling a tick off a dog, and so forth.

Pete flaunted his signature pause in this conversation before saying he wasn’t following. But it turned out he kind of was. Once I eventually stumbled my way through naming the racial element at the core of my dilemma, he didn’t really take a position. However, he did bring up that there was a tradition of running crazy distances non-stop in some Indigenous cultures of North America. That didn’t make me feel any better. I said I didn’t have a purchase on anything like that. He then asked if it’s something I could be compelled to give up willfully. I remember he phrased it that way because it sounded strangely elevated and technical, which made me paranoid that he was messing with me, or that it was a trick question. I didn’t have a substantive answer then. But now, I know the answer is no.

The previous June, almost a full year before Dad’s death, I had been on my ass for several weeks rehabbing from iceburns I’d gotten from sliding down a snow chute in the Sierra Nevada without gaiters to secure my pants over my calves. While I was out of commission, I realized it would take something much more permanently or prohibitively debilitating to make me give up endurance activity. It’s a way of manipulating my biochemistry to get on a normal level of functioning, and probably not distinct from Elliott’s attraction to additives in that respect. The fact that it took a few years before I arrived at this perspective, however, only deepens my suspicion that Pete’s really onto something with how he delivers this stuff. I call it the slow-burn because the realization comes only after extended independent reflection on a follow-up question or, sometimes, an observation that seems so specific as to be innocuous or even unrelated to the conversation. I wished more folks in academic settings would adopt this slow-burn method of instruction instead of presenting prepackaged ideas as dogma. To this day, I think less people would write me off as insubordinate and churlish if their approach were more like Pete’s.

Pete’s perspective ended up being a notable step in a multi-year progression whereby I came to understand extreme behaviors I had taken up in my adult life as ways of managing my depressive and anxiety disorders and, to a greater extent, what I learned was avoidant personality disorder. I had gotten a piece of paper from a licensed professional with those diagnoses just months before Dad’s suicide. And although I found them validating in the way of contextualizing so much of my life up to that point, I was discouraged when I had brought them up with my dad, who dismissed them out of hand in what ended up being our last face-to-face conversation.

I guess I gave him too much credit because I expected the guy to be more open about something that was so obviously a question of science and probabilities to me. Granted, there’s perhaps less known about neuroscience than other disciplines, but I always understood that as more a fault of economic and cultural priorities than an indictment on the legitimacy of psychiatric medicine as a whole. I think my mistake was suggesting to him that he was probably depressed out of his mind, too, and might also benefit from professional help. He denied the proposition, and as is usually the case when my anxiety response system takes over, the exact sequence of the discussion that followed is patchy. But I do remember the last thing Dad said before he went to bed: “You don’t have a personality disorder, Kenz. You’re not a crazy person.” I didn’t see him again before I left for Montana early the next morning.

I could tell from the weight of my hydration pack by the time Challis lights were in view that my water level was fine. In theory, I could’ve turned around for the house without stopping, and made it back before the sun set, which was around 9pm in early June. I was less concerned than I had been about being spotted by somebody I knew when I was on the move, but it didn’t take much stimulation for the latent feeling of dread to return. I only became conscious of that, though, when I heard my name yelled behind me.

It had been a minute since I’d had a proper anxiety attack and I was stopped at that point. But I remember feeling my breath get choppy before my body found another gear in time for me to recognize the familiar whine of Gertie’s axles straightening from a hard left.

Elliott had come after all. And he insisted on creeping up head-on to where I stood, jerking a foot at a time. Gertie’s fender was near my knees when he finally parked and shut her off.

I appreciated Elliott’s penchant for jocularity as a rule and generally tried to find a way to get in on the bit. But I was still rigid and reeling from what had all the makings of a brownout. I think I managed a wave—if lifting my right hand and looking down at the ground and up again as I approached the driver’s side of Gertie counted.

We got obligatory heys out there, but I didn’t know what to expect from Elliott after that. It was great that he was a clown and all, but I hadn’t previously seen him put through an emotional wringer that he couldn’t pretend to be disconnected from. What followed was the first in a succession of surprises from my next of kin that would last several months, even years.

“I’m going to get out and give you a real hug because car hugs suck. And this sucks. But I actually want to not be a dick and properly park somewhere.”

“That’s cool of you. Okay. Here or where?”

“Let’s go somewhere else.”

“Like somewhere else in Challis?”

He nodded.

“Yeah?” I don’t think I was fully back from my little witching hour a moment before, so I doubt he heard the surprise in my voice through the veritable deadpan. I eyed the backseat for the bag of clothes I thought I’d left there, and was satisfied to see the contents just as I’d remembered. Elliott noticed what I was looking at and pointed to a jacket in the passenger seat. He’d done some cursory prep and everything. I walked over to the passenger side, got in, and reached behind for the bag of dry clothes. “So, where are we going? Is this like a surprise?”

“We are going to pick up alcohol…”

“Very original.”

“Hey, no shade before I finish.”

“Alcohol. And strippers?”

“No, Kenz. The rafts.”

One of the raft companies in town staged the boats they took down the Salmon River during the day on their deck outside their store overnight. The stacks used to be a favorite haunt of Elliott and his friends on summer nights when they were in high school. My friends and I had inherited the mantle as vacant raft urchins once my brother’s wolfpack had aged out, at which point they’d moved onto more debaucherous modes of killing adolescent idle time.

“Okay, but can we stop at the Sinclair instead of the market? Like, that’s where we’re pointed, yeah?”

“What? I mean, sure. But why?”

“The bathroom entrance is on the outside at the Sinclair and I don’t really feel like walking through a grocery store at this hour with clothes I’m changing in and out of.”

“No?”

I tried my best to scowl, but I’m sure I just looked ill or tired.

“I’m joking. We can stop at the Sinclair. Yeah.” The market and gas station with the best beer selection were in opposite directions and I had asked explicitly because Elliott was pointed toward the market. From where we were, he could’ve easily turned right and driven on the street parallel to the main road to get us turned around. Elliott had never been skittish about attention though. In fact, he was something of a showman and had a way of conceiving flashy courses of action at a moment’s notice. So, naturally, he made a U turn to ensure everyone within several hundred feet could hear the wail of Gertie’s axles struggling through a hard left. I slumped down in the passenger seat until it was over. Her horn also sounded briefly as her tires straightened—something I’d later recognize was the beginning of the end for the sweet girl.

“Is that new?” Elliott asked while I was coming up from hiding.

“It has to be. I haven’t heard her do that before.”

“Shit, Kenz. I think Gertie’s on her way out.”

“Well, we all are…”

“Act accordingly.”

“I really repressed the urge to complete that with you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. It would’ve felt too cute. We’re not cute.” I had straightened up once we were what I thought was a safe distance away from the intersection where Elliott had guided Gertie in her vocal change of course.

“You know who probably thinks we’re cute? Bernie!”

“Well, to Bernie, we’re permanently seven and ten, so…” I looked up as we were pulling close to the Sinclair. “Holy shit. Bernie still runs this thing? How old is the guy?” It came out louder than I’d intended. And the windows were down. And Bernie was just standing outside.

“He’s not that old,” Elliott said, stifling laughs.

“How old do you think he is?” I made a point to say it more quietly. “I thought he was, like, 70 when you and I were still in high school.”

“He’s maybe in his early 70s now.”

“No.”

“I bet you a dollar.” He said and shut Gertie down again.

“I’ll take that bet.”

“Yeah? You’re just going to ask Bernie how old he is? How long has it been since you’ve interacted with him? Six, seven, eight years?”

By chance,the jacket Elliott grabbed for me had two singles in a zipped pocket. I picked one to lay flat by the gear shift handle between our seats. I noticed then that he’d had the forethought to bring my wallet. I wouldn’t have checked it expecting to find cash, but I grabbed it from the backseat to stash the other bill I’d just found. Then I stared at Elliott until he contributed his share to the kitty. Once he did, I stepped out of the car with my change of clothes. The patrol route Bernie reserved for when the store hit a lull had found him back inside the store, sparing me an immediate confrontation. Unless he was hard of hearing, there was no way he hadn’t heard my remark on his longevity as a storekeeper.

“Hey, I don’t need gas right now,” I said, realizing before I went off to change that Elliott had pulled up to a pump rather than the curb.

“I know. I’m filling up your tank.”

“Oh. Thanks.” I hesitated between the words, not sure what to make of the kindness. I knew my brother had worked his way into making a decent living off of freelance reporting. But I couldn’t believe that it was enough to stay on top of a high cost of living in New York and still have money to spare for short-notice flights and gas tank fills.

I changed and emerged as Elliott was migrating Gertie from the tanks to the curb. Since leaving my hometown, I’d learned that one way to quickly identify the locals in a small town was to note who left their vehicle parked by a gas pump after they’d finished fueling. People who’d come in from the outside world always thought to move their vehicle to a curb after fueling if they had other business to do inside the store. Obviously, it was a nice thing to do and Elliott and I had both picked up the habit in our time away. But gas stations in towns like Challis were never busy enough to render the effort entirely necessary.

I tossed the clothes I’d changed out of into the back seat and then Elliott followed me to the store entrance.

“Beer’s on me, Kenz.”

I didn’t look back at him but opened the door and followed him in once he walked through. He immediately went left toward the coolers and didn’t see me go right toward the register. Though he wasn’t visible, I knew Bernie was somewhere back there.

“Bernie?”

“Yep,” he said when he eventually emerged.

“Hi, can I have a pack of Marlboro Reds?” I saw Elliott’s face turn toward us in my peripherals with a speed that might’ve earned him a pinched nerve if he was Bernie’s age and arthritic. He knew I didn’t smoke.

Bernie hesitated at first but grabbed a pack from a shelf behind him. When he faced me again, he asked, “How old are you, kid?”

“I’ll be 12 in December.” As somebody who tries to keep public interactions to a minimum, I’d like to say I don’t know where my periodic sass comes from. But the truth is it comes naturally when I have a challenge with a clear objective. Under no other conditions am I capable of snarky dishonesty. I don’t think it amused Bernie, but I could sense that Elliott was quite tickled.

“Look, I’m sure you’re over 18 now, but I still need to see ID.”

“Well, joke’s on you because I have no identity.” I removed my ID from my wallet as I spoke—a way of showing I intended to cooperate even if I was also determined to keep the bit alive. “Only joking,” I said as I handed him my driver’s license. “Hey, how old are you?”

He looked at me before he’d even looked at my ID. He raised one eyebrow. I noticed only because one side of his face didn’t move at all. “Excuse me?”

I saw that Elliott’s back was turned, so I leaned toward the counter and whispered, “I have a bet with my brother.”

He pointed to himself with the hand he held my license in.

I nodded.

“You kids are weird. But I guess you’re not kids anymore.” He said it with some resignation, adjusted his glasses, and leaned toward the counter for better light as he looked down at the driver’s license reflecting my actual age of 26. “I’ll be 73 next week,” he said as he slid my license and the Marlboro Reds across the counter to me.

“Oh, shit. Happy early birthday.”

I was already poised to insert a card to pay, but he waved it away. “No, no. On me.”

“What?” I asked unconsciously at first, but then understood what he meant by it.

“Sorry about your old man,” he said.

I thanked him and walked out before Elliott was at the register, not really wanting to deal with discomfort if Bernie also refused to let Elliott pay. I was struck by the irony of giving out a substance known to be addictive as a gesture of sympathy. Dominant society always operated on the assumption that anybody would welcome a free drink or cigarette at all times. There was no default option for people trying to quit.

“You’re really going to smoke one of those? Jesus Christ, Kenz.” He lobbed the lighter over to my section and it landed on my stomach.

“I look at it as a mindfulness exercise,” I said, probably with the shit-eating grin that returns to my face exclusively in the presence of Elliott. I don’t think the phenomenon is unique among siblings, but I can still count on my maturity level to drop with striking efficiency around my brother. He would’ve given me shit if he could see my face, so I was glad we couldn’t see each other from our respective positions. The primary appeal of taking up residence in the rafts was the entertainment value of overhearing conversations from unwitting passerby, most of whom had just emerged from one of the nearby bars.

“A mindfulness exercise,” Elliott repeated.

“Yeah. Smoking a Red is kind of like my thing with hot peppers, but way more excruciating.”

“What’s the premise of that? You just eat peppers that are so hot that you can’t enjoy them?”

“Yeah, basically.” I had built something of a recreational activity around eating food cooked with the hottest peppers I could find. It had been much easier to do out east when Carolina Reapers were in season. Even then, it was a once-a-week thing. I had a theory that the process was cleansing and the pain triggered endorphin production.

“And you’re equating that to smoking Reds? Kenz, both sound awful.”

I took a puff from the cigarette. “They are!” I coughed. “This is,” I said, looking at the cigarette like it was a cursed object. “That’s what’s so great about it.”

“Here,” Elliott said as he reached over the inflated partition between our sections. I saw his hand and a section of his forearm from my vantage point. “I want to get on your level.”

I handed off the cigarette and it was quiet. “Nicotine’s never been one of your problems, huh?” I asked. He was quiet for a bit longer before he said no.

“Hey, Elliott?”

“Yeah, Kenz.”

“I know you haven’t before, but just, don’t ever ask me for money, okay?”

It might’ve sounded like a non sequitur to somebody who had just joined the conversation not knowing Elliott’s backstory. And though I doubted that Elliott could miss the point, he was quiet long enough for me to wonder if he wasn’t tracking. Then he eventually said, “I wouldn’t ever do that. You know I wouldn’t.” Then, after we’d both stayed quiet, he said, “Wait, did you already know that Dad only designated you?”

“What do you mean? Is this something about life insurance?”

“Yeah. He didn’t tell you?”

“Dad?”

“Yeah.”

“No. When did he tell you?”

“When I was home in December.”

That Dad and Elliott had a conversation about life insurance in December was news to me. I took it as further validation that, despite ample warning signs, I’d still done shamefully little to intervene.

I didn’t take that information, as I maybe should have, as an indication that I was wrong to put undue weight on the effect of my last interaction with my dad. If what Elliott reported was true, and years later, nothing suggests it wasn’t, Dad had likely been weighing this course of action for months, maybe even years.

I asked Elliott if he thought Dad hadn’t changed his mind since. He said he didn’t know, but that Pete had gotten the same impression from what documents he’d gone through.

“Jesus. Did that sting?”

“No. We talked about it. My situation. I said it was okay. It wasn’t worth it. I mean, I’m not.”

I remember feeling immediately affected by the implication in what Elliott said. He lacked confidence that he’d ever change. I knew why this thinking upset me. He thought his potential was not dependent upon his current situation, but strictly predetermined by it. I was some time out from understanding that this observation applied to my own situation. I thought my own outcomes were definite and narrowed on account of what I thought was my bad brain. And although I might’ve had all the empathy in the world for my brother and the reeling planet then, it would be of limited value until I had it also for myself. As is often the case, it’s easier to spot our own blind spots in others. I didn’t challenge Elliott then though. I think I was too preoccupied projecting what I thought to expect of addicts onto my brother despite the fact that he’d often proven himself an exception to most of the conventional wisdom. At that time, I was just puzzled that he apparently hadn’t tried to manipulate Dad into leaving him anything.

“Jesus. Elliott, you know, you’re not great at being an addict.”

“I’m sorry. By what criteria?” He laughed, I think because it’s not what he expected to hear next. “Anyway, I don’t think I’m great at being a human either.”

“I mean, okay, I’m that millennial, so this is from internet minutiae that’s not nuanced or based in hard science, but even though you’re extremely hard to get a hold of, you’ve never done the manipulative guilting and lying thing. You never hit people up for anything.”

“Yeah, you don’t know that.”

He was right. I didn’t know his life in New York. But what I knew of addiction made it out like it was improbable that he’d be above putting me and Dad on the spot. “Do you stop using whenever you’re here?”

Elliott was quiet. It was dark enough that I could see the glow of the end of the cigarette he was holding above the partition between our sections of the raft. “The last few times, yeah. Honestly, the flight’s the worst part. That’s why I always get long layovers.”

I realized that Elliott had probably been doing a number on the cigarette. I’d had all the smoking I cared for, but decided to break out one more. The pack had been a gift after all. What was left was going to be regifted to guides who’d put the rest to good use. Elliott’s lighter was still on my stomach. Once I lit the new one, I lobbed the lighter back over Elliott’s side, which took him by surprise.

“Shit,” he laughed.

The first puff from the new cigarette earned me a visitation from the choking-grade cough I was more accustomed to expect from smoking. “Oh, that’s excruciating.”

“Jesus, you okay over there?” As evidence of my theory on the maturity erosion that siblings faithfully undergo in each other’s company, Elliott accused me of “deep-throating the air cock.”

“Oh my god. That’s you,” I said, my voice still smothered. The volume of it rose inadvertently as I laughed and coughed before getting the words “you deep-throat the air cock!” out—a provocation that unintentionally came out with the force of a yell and drew an unsolicited “right on” from some stranger walking on the opposite side of the street.

Elliott and I had a running bit about deep-throating that had evolved from our unusual tendency to choke on things that we shouldn’t have. He would just breathe wrong sometimes and choke, and I was notorious for choking on water or my own spit.

“Fuck, Kenz.” Elliott was beyond general laughter. I could feel him shaking in the slot next to me, and he sounded like he was gasping as he spoke.

“It’s true though,” I tried to say more quietly, though the residual laughter was making it difficult. “You’re the one who chokes on air. I choke on water.”

“Oh, that’s right.” I could see the top of Elliott’s head as he struggled to get upright from an awkward reclined position, after which he commenced to say something to himself about how I deep-throat the water cock. I was relieved that he had shown more restraint than me and said it quietly enough so as to not invite any more attention.

“Hey, how are you handling your cigarette so quietly over there?” I asked.

“Honestly, I’ve just been letting this thing burn since you handed it to me.”

“Come on, man, these were a gift.”

“Hey, don’t pressure me into tobacco use. You’re a bad influence.” The great irony of him saying that, of course, is that I was still choking pathetically from what I’d decided was my last puff for the night.

We were silent for a while before I heard the crack of Elliott pulling a can from the plastic carrier. A tab popped and I saw the top of his head as he strained across to offer me the can. He was surprised when I declined. To assure him that it wasn’t a big deal and I just truly didn’t feel like it, I reminded him of my habit of deep-throating the water cock, or in situations like this, the beer cock. I joked that I shouldn’t risk it when my lungs are already compromised. He kept the open beer for himself.

“You finished grad school up in Syracuse this year, yeah?”

I told him I had but it was a development I felt so-so about. The amount of debt I racked up each semester was equal to the damage I’d done overall in undergrad. What’s more, I had gone the natural sciences route and seriously questioned the decision. In addition to never feeling like I fit into the culture of that world, the added context on just how hard humans had fucked the rest of the living world and ourselves over did little to temper my naturally bleak outlook.

“So you’ve been like a master of the universe for a month now?”

“Technically, chemical ecology.”

“The universe is made of chemicals, isn’t it?”

“By that logic, touché.”

“Pete says you’ll be working out in the Olympics near him for the summer.”

“A-firm. I’m heading out that way after all this.”

“Cool.”

“When are you going back east?”

“I don’t know that I am.”

“Are you for real right now?”

“Yep.” He drew the word out like he knew he was inviting a volley of follow-up questions.

“Well, damn. What’s the story, morning glory?”

“I mean, you kind of nailed it earlier, Kenz. It’s easier to stay clean here. I filed my last story that I had to be in New York to report, and I can finish the others I’m working on from anywhere. My lease is month to month. So, if it’s helpful to stay so you and Pete can go back offline, I’d just rather be around.”

“So, are you, like, done trying to make a name for yourself as an investigatory journalist, no matter how many friends you lose or people you leave dead and bloodied along the way? Are those days over?”

I heard Elliott snarf his beer at the reference, and begin to cough-laugh.

“Easy there, sport. Don’t deep-throat the beer cock,” I said.

“Thanks for all your concern,” he said as he struggled to clear his throat. “Look, I don’t want to end up like Dad. I don’t want you to have to, you know, do this again. Especially not on the East Coast.”

We were quiet for a bit after that. I wasn’t uncomfortable with what he said, but wasn’t sure if he’d felt exposed and just didn’t know how to follow that up. Without deliberately trying to change the subject, a genuine question occurred to me. “What the fuck will I do with the life insurance?”

I was relieved to hear Elliott laugh at that, too. “Are you fucking serious? Replace Gertie.”

“Blasphemy!”

“You sounded like you were asking for my opinion.”

“I was. And, look, I hear you, but the thought of that physically aches.”

“Okay, could you pay off loans?”

“Sure, but that feels pointless since I kind of doubt I’ll be alive long enough to pay those off.”

“Jesus. And for the 26th time, the goth of the year award goes to MacKenzie Callahan.”

“Look, that’s just how I feel. Like, I don’t know why the hell I’m still here. I don’t remember ever being asked if I wanted to be alive, do you?”

“Genuine question for you related to that: Do you know much about astrology?”

“Excuse me?”

“Look, you can take or leave this suggestion, but I think it might give you a different way to think about this existence that you find so tiresome, Kenz.”

Getting into astrology was the last form of existential wellness advice I expected to get from Elliott Callahan. I failed to mention to him that humans’ status as dead star matter had crossed my mind recently and though I suspected that he was getting at something along those lines, I confess I didn’t immediately take the suggestion that seriously. That would come to roost in unforeseen ways. But I basically dismissed it in the moment and asked Elliott if he still wanted to get up to spread Dad’s ashes from the top of Borah with me the next day.

“Not if you’re going to do Borah at a dead-ass run.”

“You know I wouldn’t ask anybody along if that were my plan. You don’t even have to get up early. I’m going to Diamond first.”

Borah is the state high point and the tallest peak in Idaho’s Lost River Range and Diamond is the highest in the neighboring Lemhi Range. The latter, I learned growing up, was an easy out-and-back ideal for pairing with a more taxing beat like Borah. Because the trailheads were a short drive from one another, I’d started occasionally doing the two as a double feature in my teens—an extreme habit that should’ve been my earliest sign that I wasn’t just pushing myself for the hell of it, but self-medicating in an amateur form of treatment for some outsized beasties that hadn’t been named for me until I was 26.