"Onopa-Camping" - читать интересную книгу автора (Onopa Robert)

ROBERT ONOPA

CAMPING IN THE BIOSPHERE RESERVE

*
Bob gets much of his inspiration from his Hawaiian home. He says that the idea
for "Camping in the Biosphere" came from "the swarm-like rise in rescue
helicopter traffic which followed the opening of a new trail through Maunawili
Valley, where I live here on Windward Oahu."

The trailhead was situated at the end of the parking lot of the National
EcoParks Lodge on Kauai, at the summit of Kokee. Beyond its green steel gate lay
a switchback descent into the last undeveloped Hawaiian wilderness. The valley
at its heart, Kalalau, spread northeast between two ridges which splayed wide
and peaked like bent knees before the ridgelines descended steeply to the
Pacific. Within the valley's curtain walls the landscape undulated broad and
green with tropical softwoods and hardwoods and palms; the air was rich with the
odor of white ginger.

Among the dozens of other hikers bright with outdoor gear, Max Dugan, Ph.D:,
stood with Ghfa Candiotti; B.A., pending, in the staging area, awaiting their
assigned starting time. His feet were squirming in new hiking boots, the way he
remembered they'd squirmed in new Nike pumps the night he'd lost his virginity
with Sharon Stussy thirty years before, a week after O.J.'s low speed chase.

His heart was full. Sometimes, he told himself, life gives you these moments:
you win a prize unexpectedly, a painful struggle transforms itself unaccountably
into a triumph, a fantasy comes true.

Just months ago, Ghia had been an attractive but decidedly off-limits student in
his course English 461: Wordsworth Hypertext and Nature. Today he stood with her
looking out over Kalalau, marveling at shades of green more vivid than the holos
in the EcoPark brochures, watching her tongue and lips struggle -- with an
erotic poignancy, he thought --around the Hawaiian plant names shimmering at the
border of the holding area on tiny holoplaques.

Ghia's number had come up in the Interior Department's lottery, giving her the
right to camp for a week in one of the last wilderness areas on the planet.
She'd picked him to join her on the trip, to sleep with her in her tent.

When she'd first extended her invitation, Max had misheard: "Who's bent?" he'd
asked, lost in M.A. exams he was grading.

"Tent," she'd replied. "I'm inviting you to sleep in my tent."

He'd taken a deep breath. Ghia was very smart, just a bit plump, sweet as a ripe
peach -- he'd sleep with her in an overloaded laundry basket if she asked. But
for starters there was Acura, his fiancee, as aware as he was of the