Read The Road to Grace (The Walk) for Free Online

started jogging back to her.
    As I neared her I grew more anxious. She wasn’t moving. When I was maybe a hundred feet away I cupped my hands to my mouth and shouted, “Pamela!”
    Nothing. I shouted again, “Pamela!”
    She slowly raised her head so that her chin touched the asphalt. She looked at me with a confused expression. When I reached her, I crouched down next to her. “Are you okay?”
    She didn’t answer. Her eyes darted quickly back and forth. Her face was scraped on one side, and her skin was bright red. Her lips were cracked. Her mouth was moving but she was having trouble speaking. “I’m sorry,” she said.
    “When was the last time you had something to drink?” I asked, taking a water bottle from my waist belt.
    “Long time,” she said, her words slurred.
    I held the bottle up to her lips. She opened her mouth and I squirted the water inside. She gulped heavily, though much of it ran down the side of her mouth and face. She stopped drinking only a few times and drained the bottle in less than a minute. When the bottle was empty she lay forward again, her face in her arms.
    She lay there for another fifteen minutes before she rolled to her side. “Thank you.”
    “Would you like some more water?”
    She nodded. “Yes.” Her speech already sounded better.
    I brought out my other bottle, which was only half full. She held it herself this time and quickly drained it. When she’d finished the water I handed her a Clif Bar from my pants pocket. “Here, have this,” I said, peeling back the wrapper. “You need some carbs.”
    She ate the bar quickly.
    “That was stupid following me,” I said. “You’re not prepared for this. You could have died out here.”
    She slowly looked up at me. “Would it have mattered?”
    I looked at her for a long time then said, “There’s a hotel in Wall. Let’s get you there. Can you walk?”
    “Will you talk to me if I do?”
    “No,” I said.
    “Then go,” she said. “Just leave me.”
    “I’m not leaving you.”
    In spite of her weakness, she shouted, “Leave me!” She lay her face back down on the asphalt. “Just leave me.”
    I looked around. There was no one in sight. I breathed out slowly. “Okay. I’ll talk to you.”
    She looked up at me doubtfully.
    “Come on,” I said. “I mean it. Come with me to Wall and we’ll talk.”
    She closed her eyes for a moment, then slowly struggled up to her knees. I took her arm and helped her to her feet. The front of her blouse was dirty and her arms were red and pocked from the rocks she had fallen on.
    She took a step, leaning heavily against me. Then another. It took us more than twenty minutes to get back to my pack and nearly forty-five minutes to walk the mile to the Wall off-ramp. Only a few cars passed us, and even though I put my thumb out, none of them stopped. We passed three more signs on the way.
     
    Wall Drug Exit
     
    Wall Drug Keep Left. Free Mainstreet Parking
     
    Wall Drug Straight Ahead, 4 blocks
     
    Pamela was staggering and breathing heavily at the top of the highway off-ramp. “May I rest a moment?”
    “Of course,” I said. I led her to the curved, aluminum surface of the guardrail where she sat.
    I stepped back to the edge of the road and stuck out my thumb when I saw an approaching vehicle, which immediately slowed—a phenomenon not uncommon in small towns. The gray-haired man driving an old truck pulled off the road slightly past us. I walked up to the truck’s window as it rolled down. The man reached over and turned off his radio that had been blaring country music then looked out at me. “Need a lift?”
    “Yes. Just into town.”
    “It’s only a half mile. Hop in front.”
    I walked back and helped Pamela to the truck, practically pushing her up into the cab and onto the bench seat. Then I threw my pack into the truck’s bed and climbed into the cab next to Pamela.
    “How are you all this afternoon?” the man asked.
    Pamela forced a smile. “Thank you for