Fiction: Baptism
The two women scrambled over a series of boulders, slinging the weight of their backpacks first one way, then another, scraping their hands and knees on the rough lava rock. Ursula worried aloud about the baby, who had been jostled awake in Samantha's frontpack. The climb so far had really just been a long, long hike through the forest; this change in terrain was a concern.
And then they saw it. They peeked over the top of the last boulder and the summit filled their eyes. A gray pumice field stretched ahead of them, rolling on and up to the glacier gleaming whitely in the bright sunlight.
© 2006, Jennifer Babb
(Under
the Ponderosas)