Ahead of me was a man walking along the rough shoulder of the highway, sagging under the weight of the load he carried. As I approached I saw his burden was a bulging backpack with a tent strapped to it. Canteens of various sizes swung from the unwieldy bundle and glinted in the bright morning sunshine. I slowed.

I was driving in the direction of Big Bend National Park but wasn’t going that far, only to a local store for eggs. Should I offer him a ride to the park boundary? I found it impossible to feel fear about a man who would spend his time hiking and camping in a remote, rugged wilderness. I pulled alongside him and rolled down the window on the passenger side.

 “Would you like a ride? I’m not going far but I’ll take you to the park entrance.”

The face looking back at me was young, maybe twenty at the most. I had never seen a wearier expression but a light seemed to come on in his eyes at my offer. His whiskers had grown out for more than a few days and unruly, desert-colored hair poked out from beneath a ball cap. He had on too many clothes for the warmth of the day and was sweating.

 “Okay,” he said, not quite smiling at me.

As he struggled to put the bundle into my truck I saw he had only one arm. One sleeve of his denim jacket was pinned to itself. I reached out to tug the pack as he pushed on it.

“Don’t,” he said, knocking my arm away roughly. “I’ll get it.” His mouth was set in a grim line.

I hadn’t meant to insult him; would have helped anyone with such a load. I said nothing. Getting the seatbelt fastened was a bigger struggle than getting the pack situated but I remained still and quiet, watching the scenery. After twenty-seven years of living here the scenery still surprised and astounded me. If I paid attention I saw something new every day, some nuance or shadow on a mountain I hadn’t noticed before.

When we started moving I said, “There’s a store up here if you need anything.”

He made a laughing sound that was more disparaging than lighthearted and said, “I’ve got what I need.”

Just before the Maverick entrance station I said, “I have a national parks pass.” I dug around for it.

He said nothing. I showed the pass to the ranger on duty and received a receipt good for a week’s stay in the park. Along with it he handed me a park newsletter and a brochure.

I tried to pass everything to the young man but he shoved them away angrily and said, “I don’t need that crap.”

I parked in the turn-around next to Maverick Road and said, “Okay, this is as far as I go. I hope you have a great time.”

“Yeah, right.” He stared out the window.

My eyes followed his and I saw the gigantic crack of Santa Elena Canyon in the mesa many miles away. I don’t know if it impresses people from this distance if they don’t know what it is, but it always moves me. God knows what the young man was seeing. I didn’t think he was seeing the canyon at all.

With no warning except perhaps his barely concealed seething anger, he reached across the seat and stuck something hard against my ribs.

“Keep driving me,” he said through clenched teeth. “Don’t try anything stupid.”

I glanced down at my side, afraid to look and afraid not to. I knew it was a weapon of some sort before I saw it and still couldn’t believe it when I did.

“What are you doing?”

“Shut up and drive,” he said.

“No. This is as far as I’m going.”

He turned to me with an incredulous expression. “I’ll kill you right here.” He pushed the pistol against me.

“Why? Why would you kill me? For offering you a ride? Because you don’t like…”

“Shut up!”

“I’m not afraid to die,” I said, not mentioning I didn’t actually want to yet.

“Drive,” he said. “Don’t make me shoot you.”

“Where would you like to go?”

“Someplace where there’re no people.”

“Look out there,” I said with an expansive sweep of my arm. “Take your pick of places. This park is as big as the state of Connecticut and has very few visitors compared with many of our national parks.”

“Get moving. I don’t want you to talk. I don’t need no damn tour from some damn local.”

“You should put that gun away. It’s illegal to have one in the park.”

He laughed. “It’s illegal to do a lot of things but people do them.”

“You can put it away,” I said. “I’ll drive you wherever you want to go. You don’t have to threaten me.”

“I’ve killed people. What do you think about that?” His look was daring me to judge him, daring me to speak at all.

Perhaps I should have felt fear then but I didn’t, not much. I looked over at him and saw a desperate young man with a handsome face. I hadn’t noticed that before, how handsome he was. The unkempt look and the gruffness had thrown me.

“I guess I would need to know why you killed them before I could answer that question.”

“I killed them because somebody told me to.”

I didn’t know what to say to that so I waited, hoping he would give me more to go on.

“Why aren’t you scared?” he asked after a few miles passed.

“I don’t see you as a killer. You have eyes the color of Robins’ eggs. How could you be a killer?” It was a stupid thing to say of course, but was what came to mind.

He laughed and for the first time it was real. “You’re good,” he said after he watched me a while. He toasted me with an imaginary something he held in his hand. The small pistol was lying in his lap.

“When I was a young woman I hiked all over this park.”

“So?”

“So I know it very well.”

“So? What is your point?”

“My point is that if you’d start hiking and exploring you would soon feel better about whatever is eating you.”

“What makes you think something is eating me?”

I glanced over at him. After a pause I said, “Because you have a chip on your shoulder the size of Texas, for one thing. The threat you’ve made on my life? There’s another.”

He was watching me with sad eyes.

“You’ve got balls,” he said. “Keep talking.”

“I was trying to say the wilderness is a good place to heal and get to know yourself again… in case you’ve forgotten who you are. If you lie against some of these big boulders they will remind you.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Now I know why you’re not afraid of me. You’re crazy.”

I laughed at that. “No I’m not. I’ll prove it to you if you’ll put that pistol in your pack.”

“It’s a Glock semi-automatic made for the military.”

“Great. Please put it away.”

“You don’t know anything about the military, do you? You live out here in the middle of freakin’ nowhere.… Do you even know there’s a war?”

“Of course I know it. You’re right that I don’t know much about the military but I keep myself informed about news and things going on in the world.”

“What about lying on boulders and hearing voices?”

“I didn’t say you’d hear voices, only that they’d help you remember who you are.”

“You’re crazy; certified probably.”

I laughed and said nothing. I was old enough not to care what he thought. It was a wonderful freedom. There was a time when I cared desperately what handsome young men thought of me. That was long ago, very long ago.

“I kind of like you though,” he added, surprising me. “I want you to show me about the rocks. Please.” He said nothing more about the pistol but put it away.

Before long I saw an unpaved road and turned onto it. He began to look around, fidgeting nervously.

“I’m taking you to meet some rocks,” I explained. “What is your name anyway?”

“Why do you want to know my name?”

“So I have something to call you.”

He considers this and finally says, “My name is Dallas.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I’m a Texan, same as you. Why wouldn’t my name be Dallas?  I was born there. What’s your name?”

“Rochester.” I smiled at him. “I was born there.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said, but grinned. “What is your name really?”

“It’s Stephanie but I always thought I’d like a name like Dallas or Austin.”

“It’s sort of stupid.”

“No it’s not. I like it.”

We got out of my car and approached the giant boulders which were not far from the road. I rested my hand against one, warm from the sun. A flood of emotion washed over me. I had a very broken and damaged heart the first time I came to this park and I used to lie against boulders like this one and pour out my feelings to the ancients. Sometimes I’d lie on the ground, crying and screaming.

“What do we do?” Dallas asked, bringing me back.

I placed my back against the boulder, lying into it until nearly all of my weight was supported by it. “Just this.”

Dallas shrugged off his jacket and threw it to the ground. Then he removed a long-sleeved shirt, leaving him in only a t-shirt and jeans. The stub of his arm was still bandaged. I tried not to look at it.

“Lie here beside me,” I said, “and take my hand.”

“Are you coming on to me?”

“I could be your grandmother,” I said.

“Could not. You aren’t that old.”

“Just put your weight against this boulder and quit worrying about things. I won’t hurt you.”

He lay next to me and took my hand. “I wasn’t worried,” he said, like a little kid.

“Close your eyes and feel the sun on your face. Don’t try to think about anything in particular. Just be still a while.”

We lay basking in the warm winter sun like a couple of lizards until Dallas began to cry. I heard him sniffling and turned to look at him, shading my eyes with my free hand. I was wondering if I should say something – and what – when he began to sob.

“Are you okay, Dallas?”

He was wracked with emotion, sobbing and gripping my hand. Finally he said, “Please don’t leave me.”

“I won’t.”

After a long time he cried out. “My arm – what good is a man without an arm?”

I said nothing. Needlessly he said, “Don’t try to make me feel better.”

I wasn’t going to. My big plan was to let him talk. How would I ever hope to do anything more than that?

When he recovered from the sobbing he said, “My arm was blown off less than four weeks ago.”

“You were in the war, weren’t you Dallas?”

“Yes,” he sobbed at me. “Yes. I was there.”

He cried a while. “Nobody cares about what is happening to us over there. It’s far away and not even real unless you have to be there. It’s – it’s the worst thing that ever happened to me. And nobody cares. I came home and nobody cares about any of us.”

“That’s not true, Dallas. Many people are against the war but I don’t know anyone who is against the troops.”

“Just shut up. You don’t know anything.”

“Tell me, Dallas. I want to know.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

“Could we sit down?”

We moved to the ground, our backs supported by the giant boulder, and he told me his story. I had never spoken with someone so fresh from the battle lines before. I heard a horror story of death and destruction; of bodies blown apart, friends and limbs lost to a war that should never have happened. I heard about the desolation and loneliness, how his fiancée had abandoned him when she got the news about his arm, and about an overcrowded V.A. hospital that was understaffed, and desperate for more beds.

cried against me. He talked and talked. I was exhausted from it and still he raged on. He was like a dam breaking during a flood.

Sometimes he smiled or laughed, remembering a friend. Most often he cried. I cried too, until my eyes burned from it. I felt I had been there with him. I felt the loneliness and the fear. His lost friends were mine. His lost arm was mine, too.

I tried to be supportive without giving him advice. He didn’t need advice; he needed to talk, for someone to listen and care about what he said.

In the beginning of the seventies I had been a peaceful protestor of the Vietnam War. I wore an MIA/POW bracelet until it was evident the man whose name was on it would never return.

What we failed to realize back then was that our troops were returning and we weren’t thanking them. Most of them were there defending freedom. That is all they knew about it. They were there fighting for us and they lost arms and far worse. They were treated poorly by our government.

As I held Dallas and listened to his story I gave thanks for a second chance. I could tell a returning hero that I appreciated the sacrifices he had made for me. I could protest a war but offer love to a victim of it.

I was so young before. When the Vietnam War ended I was just starting out in my life as an adult. I wish I could go back and thank those men who died for my right to do that. We were protesting a war we believed was unjust and unwinnable. Nobody stopped to think about our military men and women. We weren’t protesting them – far from it – but we forgot to tell them.

It was past noon when I took Dallas to Santa Elena Canyon. He asked me to show him one of my favorite places. I had so many it was difficult to decide.

We stopped at the park store for lunch and I called my family to explain I had met a friend and would not be home any time soon. My daughter was incredulous, and only half-believed me, but had the decency not to question me much, another perk of my being older.

Dallas thought Santa Elena Canyon was a holy place, which it is. We walked up the trail into the canyon. It was a quiet day for tourism and the few people wandering around left long before we did. We listened to our voices echo off the walls, along with the calling of the birds and the splashing of the Rio Grande. Everything was transformed by the canyon.

I’d rafted through it and had the good fortune to camp in it many times. I’d seen thunderous waterfalls, the result of passing summer storms, and slept beneath a ribbon of stars. I’d also seen the massive walls in the milky light of a full moon.

I told Dallas about these things, and other wild places I thought he would appreciate; places full of healing energy, like Boulder Meadow and Slickrock Canyon. My list was long and Dallas listened intently, taking it all in. I told him these were my places; he’d find his own among them.

In the end he took the park literature and promised to read it. He also took the receipt from me and said with a sideways grin that he would stay for the full week and check out some of my special places.

“You’re pretty cool for an old lady,” he said, hugging me fiercely.

I hugged him back.

It was hard to let him go. I knew the wilderness would work its magic if he’d do his part. I left him standing by the river, smiling.