The caramel orange trail dripped downward and banked right, leading across a concave folding crease on the South face of the canyon. A week of grueling terrain had taken a man from snowcapped rim, down Dripping Springs trail, more rapidly down the infamously cascading Boucher trail, and now traversing the near-base towards the night's campground. The simple massiveness of the landscape seemed to make it impenetrable to outside forces, leaving it perceptually, perpetually untouched. Maybe that was why the man elected to spend his brief hiatus from medical school, not trolling the bars or traveling home, but hitting the largest canyon in the world on a solo backpacking trip.

"Figures." A med school friend had drawled after hearing his plans. "The only chance you'd have with a girl would require an equally unbathed atmosphere." Laughter ensued, "Preferably in a natural kiln, with her in enough pain over her boiling feet to reach delirium."

The man smiled at this. A level playing field never hurt. Though, looking East across the gulch separating him from the most adjacent fold of the southern face, he thought he'd be more likely to run across a rattlesnake wearing ruby lipstick, than a beautiful, smart, or engaging woman. As he turned back to the path ahead of him, he missed a flash of unnatural light from the East wall of the gulch, as a backpack with a tethered-on mirror was dropped to the ground beside Hermit's trail.

A woman sat on a slanted rock beside her trail, pouring a small mound of pebbles from her rapidly eroding hiking boots. Her once smooth sock liners now held crevices, peaks and stabbing spires that worked together to fray her feet raw. She sighed, half smiling, half shaking her head exasperatedly at the unlikely, yet extraordinary situation in which she found herself. About this time she had expected to be careening across Cali-bound asphalt in a rented Harley. Her plan had been to rent a motorcycle as means of checking out some upper level Psychology internships spanning the California coast. It was to be both a fulfilling adventure and a professional exploration. Yet, of all things she expected to go wrong, she hadn't planned for one. The rental agency had run out of bikes, and could only offer her a traditionally boring four-wheeler. A car, with too many wheels, too much AC, and way too much storage space. So, she took the situation as it was - filled the extra space with backpacking gear, and worked the one and only Grand Canyon into her itinerary.

And still, the likelihood she was going to actually make it into the canyon was next to null. Getting a pass to hike the grandest canyon in the world often took preregistering months in advanced. When she arrived, however, the rangers offered her a pass given up by hikers driven away by the frosty rim - complements of a May Nevada snowstorm. She took the pass gladly, and was pleasantly surprised to find the interior of the canyon entirely free of snow. This last-minute add on to her trip had come of a series of ostensibly unfortunate events.

Amid her present scenery, giving up trimming the westward tar atop 1,750ccs seemed a decent price to pay in exchange for such a worldly marvel. It took a mere half mile to turn the powdery landscape into a binary biome of bare rocks that seemed to be under the constant watch of setting sunlight.

The exception being, of course... Shit... Her feet were killing her.

She blew into her boots momentarily, trying to clear it of any remaining dust that would continue their quest for blood. The pain of putting them back on does not vary the smile that had crept its way onto her face while thinking of how she had ended up upon this slanted, spiky rock, her pack resting beside. She was only a couple of miles from Hermits Creek, her oasis of a camp ground for the night.

Hermit's Creek ripples.

It carries the semblance of the many seemingly insignificant indentations of the historically renowned face of the canyon. Yet there was magic tucked within. A stream runs through it, feeding the trees and bushes that line both its banks - the lushest greenery to be seen for miles in any direction. To the West, a rock belly stretches out eight to ten feet, providing shelter to the early bird lucky enough to claim it before another wary hiker. The brook's peaceful and fertile nature sat almost contrarily to the monumental canyon, and yet fit so snugly within its cut of the Southern shoulder.

It was early morning when the man's ducked head bobbed determinately into the camp through mostly dry creek beds that crossed and braided his path towards the central North bound brook. In the beds laid large stones - remnants of the rock that had once filled in the slice of the Southern face now called Hermit's Creek. Their mission now was to twist ankles and trip tired strollers. As he carefully stepped over them, he waited to hear the characteristic, faithful rippling of the main creek bed up ahead. His Boucher had joined with Hermits trail, which led directly into camp.

Something about the acoustics of the surrounding rock tended to project the sound of the water, making it heard miles further out than would be expected. Its frequency bounded from rock to rock, and rang steadily between them, giving the brook a bell's chime in addition to its naturally shimmering tone. He had gone over a week without a shower, and despite the May snowcaps above, longed to jump into the frigid flow.

The man now sat beside an awkwardly industrial six-foot-high archway of metal pipes. Despite the arch's purpose as suspenders of food, they now served as a drying rack for his soaked and salty hiking garments. The man hadn't been able to help himself from leaping into the creek when he had finally reached his destination.

Through the chamber of the canyon, a chimed echo sounded, and grew slowly until it overshadowed that of stream. The man took pause from wringing out an indelibly highlighted sock to look up. It was a song. At first it reached him only in sporadic bursts as waves of notes happened to bounce off rock in a pattern that led to him and his six-foot pipes.

The song grew louder, suggesting its source neared the camp site. A few more steps revealed a woman's voice. It was lively, but kept at a relatively low pitch suggesting fatigue. A few more and the words he thought to be convoluted by the rocks were revealed as some foreign language of Asian heritage. It quivered in beautifully rung vibrato amplified by a natural, rambling amphitheater. It seemed to resemble the sanctity of the slowly eroded cavern, with a tone as sweet as the orange peel grades of the walls that surrounded them. He wondered whether she sung of the brightly brutal sun setting across layers of rock, the green Angel Shale runoff near the base of the gorge, or of the frosty opal blankets above them all. It sounded like one of the many oriental songs of Japan he'd heard in old movies. Perhaps it carried centuries of atavistic and wisdom-ous appreciation of the beauty around them.

Her rocking stride began to pull her into view through the many trees and bushed separating his little laundry spot, and the inbound trail. A striking woman strolled alone, with her two thumbs trained beneath her shoulder pads to release pressure. She had dark brown hair trailing just below the shoulders, and her eyes pointed down to watch the path bellow. She wore a canyon-speckled, ex-white hiking shirt, green cargo pants, and a content, if voracious smile as she sang. She walked with a slight limp, causing her to step precariously.

"Hey there." He said in pleasantry. "What are you singing abou..."

"Jesus Christ!" Her head flung up, forward foot-planted, and her careful gate turned into a backward spring. Her gaping eyes were a dark hazel, much like the stream shimmering in reflection of the greenery and earth it pierced.

"Wha..." His eyes refracted her startle, but settled quickly into thoughts of a smooth remedy to the situation. "Oh no... the hair." His brown hair grown had been creeping toward hip level since college. "Common mistake. You can just call me Joel." It was an old dad joke he liked. His smile faulted when she didn't respond immediately - her eyes and brow drawn up like stagnant window blinds drawn up too quickly.

"You scared the hell out of me." She sat down on a large rock, flinging her pack down onto the well-fed grass that carpeted the little oasis in the rock. A little mirror bounced upon one of its many compartments.

"Ah, I am sorry about that. I'd been hearing your song for a good quarter mile. What's it about?"

She'd began undoing her laces. "These boots were supposed to last me at least to California. Though, I suppose they weren't expecting to be trundled down the biggest Canyon in the world."

"Yikes," He said. Her feet were indeed red and swollen throughout. "But I was asking about the song... actually."

"Ya, the song. It's about my feet. Some son of a deity you are." She looked up at him now through a mysteriously white smile in appreciative reciprocation of his earlier joke.

"They hurt like hell. I'm getting devil-damned delirious."

His... Joel's, own smile, that seemed to have silently crept its way across his face, split into laughter. She saw rawness behind the laugh - how it reached up into his eyes. And how he looked at her.

"Lesley." She said, extending a hand. "You wouldn't happen to know any remedies for sore feet, would ya?"

"Actually, I do." He said, taking it. "Just Scream."

And she did.

Based off the true story behind the courtship of Lesley LeFevre and Joel Peacock.