Creature Discomforts

but a hike that goes straight uphill?”
    “We’ve discussed this already. There’s hope for everyone,” Malcolm Fairley said inadequately. Then he seemed to gather his forces. “And for all that the stepped trails blend with the natural landscape, they are man-made structures, as Quint reminded us. They aren’t trees, and at the same time, they’re a powerful, persuasive argument for conservation and preservation.”
    “But they’re already in a national park,” I pointed out. “Conservation and preservation have many facets,” Malcolm Fairley countered. “Here, where we stand right
    now, solidly within the park, this beautiful trail was deliberately left to deteriorate, but thanks to the generous volunteers who are donating their time and labor, we are saving what is, in effect, a magnificent symbol of man’s ability to live in harmony with the wilderness in a give-and-take relationship with universal benefit.”
    I wished Buck would speak up. He didn’t.
    “What’s special about Malcolm’s approach,” Gabrielle told me, “is that he sees positive opportunities everywhere. Who else would’ve imagined that Wally and Opal would throw themselves into working on a trail?”
    “At the Pine Tree Foundation,” said Malcolm, as if reading from a piece of promotional literature, “we believe in conservation from the ground up.”
    Instead of what? I wondered. Conservation from the ground down? From the air up? Down? The slogan was, I decided, meaningless. Fairley, however, seemed to like it. In fact, he repeated it. “Conservation from the ground up! And from that point of view, you see, no one is a lost cause. There’s always something out there that someone can relate to in a personal, meaningful way. Even Norm Axelrod. If you want to make progress, you have to act on that assumption. That was the idea of inviting Norm to come and see the stepped trails for himself. To tell the truth, I was surprised myself when he accepted. If I hadn’t mentioned the inconsistencies in the trail signs, he wouldn’t have. In retrospect, I can see that I was wrong, not in terms of the general principles, but in terms of the specifics. In hindsight, it’s clear that Norm was more unfit than I realized. I’ve had to ask myself whether he was outright unwell.”
    Others murmured in agreement. “Vertigo,” someone suggested. “He’d never have admitted to it,” someone else said.
    “Whatever it was,” Fairley said, “I should never have suggested the hike to him in the first place. And once we were up here, I should never have let him out of my sight. I blame myself for taking too much for granted. The rain. We’re all used to hiking in rain. Norm wasn’t. Wet stone.
    We’re all used to it. Norm wasn’t. And the trail was slippery. I came close to slipping myself once or twice. It’s the most common accident in the park, of course, falling on rocks.” How many times had he said that? Hundreds! “Most of all, we take our own strength for granted. We’ve all learned a hard lesson from this.”
    Buck moved in again. “Nothing weak about Holly,” he said. “Nothing unfit about her.”
    “As I said,” Fairley replied evenly, “I came close to falling myself.”
    “Holly learned to crawl on the rocks on the coast of Maine,” Buck proclaimed with the kind of parental pride that makes any sane human being cringe. Had I really? If so, what on earth had my parents been thinking? The rocks on the coast of Maine are slippery and treacherous. Furthermore, they’re thick with barnacles. And I’d been allowed to crawl on them? “She’s been handling big dogs since she took her first steps,” my father went on. I said silent prayers that Buck would not, please, please not, launch into stories of my childhood. “In and out of the ring,” Buck bragged, “there’s never been a damned thing wrong with her footwork.” Gabrielle and Steve, of course, understood him. Malcolm, Anita, Wally, Opal, Quint, and Effie, I’m sure, had no idea what he meant by either ring or footwork. They probably thought that we were a family of trapeze artists and that I’d grown up in a circus. Oblivious to their bafflement and my embarrassment, Buck elaborated by comparing me to a champion in a sport entirely unknown to most of his listeners: dog agility. “As lithe as a Border collie whipping through the weave poles,” he proclaimed. “As swift and surefooted as Jean MacKenzie’s Brownie on the A-frame.”
    “Does