THE LESS I KNOW THE BETTER

JASPER NATIONAL PARK, ALBERTA

 I'd been out of a bad relationship just long enough to become convinced I was fine.

The border officer at Roosville was a woman in her early sixties, somebody's grandmother, with the look of someone who'd watched every kind of idiot come through her window. She asked where I was headed.

"Jasper. I met a girl."

"Oh, that's so sweet, honey."

She'd seen this exact situation before and had opinions about how it went.

I'd met the girl in Banff, at the Dusty Boot Saloon, after a long day hiking for bighorn. Four days without a shave. Unwashed hair under a beanie that was doing everyone a favor. I smelled like I'd just walked out of a locker room.

She liked me anyway. That mattered more than I understood at the time.

We hit it off the way you do at twenty, when your brain is still finishing construction and interest and commitment can look like the same thing. We decided to make it official when I got back to Bozeman. The last thing had gone bad slowly. This was fast and clean. Somebody had looked at me in that condition and chosen me.

It felt good being chosen.

She lived in Jasper. I lived in Bozeman. Normal, well-adjusted people would have looked at a map, then their bank account, and called it a day.

I am not normal people.

The officer asked how long the drive was.

"Usually fourteen hours. But it may be more."

She scanned my passport, told me to be careful, and sent me through with the specific warmth of someone who knew something I didn't.

It was twenty-three hours, straight through. That's the kind of romantic gesture that looks great if it works out and deranged if it doesn't. I was certain which one I was in.

The back end of the truck slipped out on the ice at the Banff park gate. I understood then that I was in for a haul. The sun set somewhere around Peyto Lake, and by the time I started climbing toward the Columbia Icefields it was a full whiteout: no plowing, no visibility, a thousand chances to turn around and me passing every one. I ran on Celsius and Swedish nicotine pouches, 35 milligrams, and I fantasized the entire way. Twenty years old and in love, and those two things together make you genuinely dangerous to yourself and every other Tom, Dick, and Harry on the Icefields Parkway.

I pulled into Jasper twenty-three hours after I left, guitar case in hand, like a vagrant who'd just blown in off the highway, which is exactly what I was.

The Stand Easy had a queue for the stage. I talked the sound tech into fitting me in. Confidence, mostly, plus the desperation of a man who'd just driven through a whiteout. I was not leaving without playing a set.

She was there with her friends. Jude, from Jasper, had the energy of someone who knew things and was deciding whether to tell them. Jackson, from London, was a lifty at Marmot Basin: silver jewelry, bandanas, straight out of a Mick Jagger fashion shoot. We drank Stiegl and Crown Royal shots served off a ski, because, well, Jasper.

I got up and played Karma Police. This Love. A Horse With No Name. Les.

She stared at me the whole set. I took that as a good sign.

Afterward I walked out to the truck to put the guitar away, and she followed, talking about life, with the clear intention of coming back to the Tonquin Inn with me. I'd booked a room there so I'd have somewhere to shower and shave and look presentable for a girl, which I almost never do. I sleep wrapped in canvas with my dog. No need to impress him.

I said no. On principle. A hotel room felt like the wrong move, and I thought I was being respectful. The two brain cells I had left were duking it out, and they were both winning.

The next night we bar hopped until the witching hour. Jackson and I got into it about the States. Nobody trashes my country but me. Somewhere in there it stopped being an argument and turned into an actual conversation, and I caught her watching me. Something shifted in her expression. I filed that away too.

We ended up at a nightclub that was basically empty. Without us there'd have been tumbleweeds. The bouncer knew her by name. I filed that away and ignored it.

We danced to thumping music in an empty room. I cannot dance. I'm from Utah, and not in the Footloose way. I looked like a man in a full body cast trying to stay upright.

At 3 a.m. we were at the Circle K and I was absolutely plastered. She bought me a hot dog, which I took as a positive sign. Buying someone a hot dog at 3 a.m. is an intimate gesture F. Scott Fitzgerald would have written about if he'd had the right publisher. Jackson had spent the whole night giving me a London sermon on love and pursuit and how I should go for it.

I want it on the record that I was happy.

That's when Jude finally decided to tell me what he knew.

"Hey, buddy. None of us knew you guys were official. She slept with two guys at once the night before you got here. So sorry. Next time you're in town I'll get you a beer."

Back at the hotel I threw up almost immediately. Red Bull vodka. Then I called my buddy to relay the data, laughing so hard I was crying, and somewhere in the middle of the sentence it slowly became 100% proof crying.

I barely knew her. That was the part I couldn't make add up.

I lay down on the bathroom floor and slept there.

Woke up the next morning. Put on my game face. Did some jumping jacks. That's what I'm built for, I think.

Drove out to the Valley of the Five Lakes. I needed somewhere to put all of it, and I had actual work to do for tax purposes, and the lakes didn't care what had happened at the Circle K.

Found a bull elk doing his absolute level best to mate with every cow in the valley. Hours of it. Full send every time. Not a single one interested. He'd bugle. Nothing. He'd try again. Nothing. He kept going with the kind of optimism that is either deeply admirable or a sign of cognitive impairment, and honestly I was in no position to judge.

I sat on a rock and watched him for a long time.

I'd barely known her. That wasn't really what I'd been crying about.

Two years of something bad had ended, and I'd gone looking for something fast and clean across a border. I needed proof of concept. For a couple days I thought I'd found it.

He bugled. Nothing.