“I’m your sergeant. You command me.”

There were space hazards everywhere. My pack carried oxygen that we shared when the Captain ran low as he battled aliens. Asteroids fell around us but our wind-shells-turned-space-suits protected us in an extraterrestrial universe. Roman led us onward, incorporating the ground we covered in our role-playing fantasy.

Two hours off Earth went by quickly, easing the difficult terrain.

Once over the pass, we stumbled across a long stretch of rubbly ‘a‘a, the Hawaiians’ word for sharp and broken, clinker-like lava. Whenever it was especially rough, Roman slipped into space captain mode, his imagination lightening his challenges. Eventually, small patches of plant life reappeared, then green carpets of heather and dwarf willows. We walked along tiny beaded streams that snaked through low-growing gardens of wildflowers. There were occasional shallow caves, too, at the base of short lava cliffs.

A bit nervously, Cody Roman peered into a stream that disappeared as it went subterranean.

“Pretty cool, huh?” I asked.

“Nah, I don’t like it. It’s dangerous,” Space Captain said. “C’mon, Sergeant.”

Arriving at the Pacific beaches relieved me. Injuring myself was my greatest fear. Falling on the ‘a‘a and breaking a leg seemed a real possibility as I labored under a fifty-pound load of food, camping gear, and clothes for us both. In order to keep the trip more enjoyable for him, young Roman carried no pack.

Sometimes, when Roman’s feet hurt, I put him on my shoulders, doubling the weight that I carried. There’d been very few carries that day, thanks largely to the Captain’s active explorations and battles with aliens. It had been our longest, hardest, and highest day yet. The setting sun cast long shadows and a warm glow across Recheshnoi.

The next day broke sunny, without a breath of wind, but so many mosquitoes! We could see why. The cattle were as thick as the bugs. We hiked along the coast to distance ourselves from the lone bulls who tore at the dirt with their hooves and threw dust over their backs with long pointy horns. I kept the .44 handy.

Sea lions croaked and puffins dove beyond the surf line. Alongshore, Roman delighted in feeding the green tentacles of sea anemones with small creatures he caught and named, like “dinglehoppers” and “jumping jacks.” He wanted to catch a salmon, but we saw none in the streams, including the knee-deep, glacier-fed river that had repulsed the cowboys. We camped near it to get an early crossing when it would be lowest. The cowboys must have been here after a big rain. I crossed it first with my pack; then carried Roman. It was easy.

Along the coast we walked over lava reefs, uncovered by the low tide and teeming with life. Isopods—ancient, trilobite-looking relatives of shrimp the size of my thumb—crawled so slowly across blades of brown kelp that they hardly seemed to move. Years later in graduate school, Roman would study the geography of these creatures’ genetics—a sign, perhaps, of how deeply our first “big trip” had touched him.

WE WERE CAMPED fifteen miles from Nikolski. Mist arrived with morning, burying Umnak in fog. We broke camp in wind and rain on our last and longest day of the walk. I pulled out the compass, showing Roman how to read it. “Press the compass to your chest and keep it level,” I instructed, looping its lanyard over his head. “Now turn your body to put the red arrow in the red shed and when it’s in there, keep it there by walking straight.”

The day passed gray and dull, with visibility limited to fifty yards and fewer. The wind whipped our faces with the draw cords from our rain jacket hoods. Cody Roman worked his imagination, naming the hills we climbed, names I didn’t record in my journal with so little time to write each night. His feet hurt more in bad weather than good, so I took to longer carries. “Son,” I asked at one point, “can you walk a while? My back hurts.”

“Sure, Dad.” He slipped off my shoulders, lightening my load by half, taking my hand as we walked side by side. An hour or two later, out ahead leading the way with the compass, he stopped and asked, “Dad, can you carry me? My feet hurt.”

“Sure, Rome, let’s take a break first.” Clothes sticky with sweat under rain gear, we collapsed on my pack. Resting there, sheltered from the wind by tall grass, he chewed on a strip of jerky, then unwrapped a yellow Starburst candy, his favorite.

When we finally reached Nikolski, the weather broke. The Islands of Four Mountains—green, perfect cones striped in snow—rose from a deep dark sea like art on a Japanese scroll. Whale bones and skiffs rested outside the homes of Nikolski’s three dozen villagers. Orange fishing floats hung under the eaves of their weathered wood houses. A hundred yards up the beach from the surf, bleached white logs traced the power and reach of winter storms. There weren’t any forests for a thousand miles.

We found Scott Kerr, the guide who’d given us the tent-pole splint. In his warm little house, we felt free from the elements at last.

News spreads quickly in rural Alaskan villages, especially about six-year-old boys who walk sixty miles. A weathered old Aleut in a Carhartt jacket named Simeon Peter Pletnikoff dropped by Scott’s place. During World War Two, nearly all Aleuts, or Unangan as they call themselves, had been forcibly removed by the U.S. government. “Aleut Pete” had been allowed to stay and help fight because he was such a talented outdoorsman who knew the Aleutians well. As one of a motley army squad known as Castner’s Cutthroats, he fought against the Japanese soldiers who had invaded his island chain.

Aleut Pete sat down and cupped his hands around a mug of coffee. Round glasses on high cheekbones suggested a gentle wisdom. He raised his eyebrows, smiling. “Well, aren’t you a strong little fella? Not many people who aren’t Unangan have walked across Umnak. Were you scared?”

“Sometimes,” Roman admitted, “like when the wind blew our tent down. Or when the bulls were ripping up the dirt with their feet. Or when the geysers went too big. But look what I found!” Roman opened his hand, revealing an orange-colored agate. “A volcano made this!”

In his other hand, he held a polished black rock, smooth and round as a ball bearing. “And this one, too. I found it by the river where we camped. And my dad found a glass ball in the seaweed! And big, big barnacles that came from a whale’s back!”

Aleut Pete sat back, his smile widening at the young boy’s enthusiasm. Then he reached into the pockets of his Carhartt jacket and pulled out a glass ball from a Japanese fishing boat and a sea lion’s canine.

“Here you go, little hiker. Something to remember from Umnak.”

After the visit with Aleut Pete, Kerr led us to Nikolski’s deserted school and let us in. We spread our things on the carpeted floor and felt grateful to sleep someplace other than a damp, flapping tent. I hoped the scheduled flight from Dutch would get us straightaway so Roman could return to his sister and mom. Instead, as often happens in bush Alaska, we waited for the weather to clear. We waited a week.

The first night in the school, cozy in our sleeping bags, I felt pleased with my young son’s performance over the previous week. There’d been no complaining from the curious and imaginative six-year-old, asked to walk all day, every day, for a week. “Roman, you’re a good hiker,” I praised, “and a strong one, too. Jazzy and Mom are going to be very impressed with you.”

We had averaged one mile an hour, eight hours a day, making twelve and fifteen miles the last two days. But the numbers didn’t matter. We’d grown close. Roman had learned about nature and about himself, how to deal with discomfort, wind, and rain, walking day after day. I’d learned how to pace, care, and sacrifice for my son.

Maybe it was too soon, but I asked anyway. “Roman, did you like this six-day trip? Would you want to do one again?”

“Yeah, Dad, it was okay. But let’s bring Mom and Jazzy next time.”

“Okay. We will,” I promised, smiling at the thought of a Dial family adventure.

“Now. Can we finish Charlotte’s Web?” he asked.

We pushed ourselves together to read the final chapters and fell asleep contented, trip partners for life.

Chapter 9

Borneo

Draco, Malaysian Borneo, 1995.

Courtesy of the author