We skirted Detroit Lake and began hugging the southern slope of Mount Hood, where the rain forest thickened and darkened further. We shot past trailheads and turnouts, runaway truck lanes on the opposite shoulder, as off to the side, volcanic ravines plunged and dipped, vast, frozen tidal waves of earth, spiked with innumerable identical fir trees.

Our plan was to find the stream we were looking for and set up camp before dark so we could wake up early and hike in to the hot springs first thing in the morning. Kurt claimed he knew exactly where we were going, but pretty soon it became clear that was not the case. We curved around a series of intersecting highways, through furrowed, wooded valleys, then doubled back, swung around again, and before long we were completely lost.

Eventually Kurt pulled over to the side of the road and took out the map, which clattered under his touch. He spread it on the dashboard and we tried reading it, but we were both still too stoned to concentrate. The colored lines and words fuzzed out, impossibly complex. The late-day sunlight made everything seem fragile and distressed.

“I know a place a few miles from here,” Kurt said finally, crushing the map into the back seat. “We could camp out there and find the place in the morning. I know we’re close.”

“You know how to get there?” I asked him.

“Yeah, I know how to get there,” he said, and banged the car into gear.

It got darker and darker, and soon the black trees were slipping by like ghosts. We turned up a logging road—white reflectors flashing as we raked by—and after a few scrapes and tilts and turns we ended up in a narrow cul-de-sac that was also an impromptu dumping ground. The headlights swirled with dust, which settled to reveal an old love seat, some kitchen chairs, and a smattering of soiled papers and carpet samples.

We got out of the car and peered into the gloom. The car was still idling and the dust was just returning to the ground. Beyond the garbage, we couldn’t see much. The headlight beams shot out into stark emptiness. The air was cold.

“Well,” I said, trying to keep positive, “we may as well stay here, I guess. Right? We can still get a good start in the morning.”

“I’m cool with it if you are,” Kurt said. “Looks fine to me.”

We made a small fire and pitched the tent, pulled out some beers and cigarettes. Kurt had a BB gun, a one-shot, air-pump pistol, which he got from the trunk, and we took turns aiming at beer bottles and metal cans. It was nice—the mellow rhythm of trading the gun back and forth, squaring up, and shooting, punctuating the drifting patterns of our talk.

We talked about nothing much for a while. We just tried to get something going between us.