“Fine,” Roz said. “Give me a few minutes to check out the map. Go tell the others.”
Fiona was still disappointed in herself and wanted to make it better, but Roz was no longer paying attention to her. Instead, she was staring up at the mountains, grim and pale.
Realizing she had no way to fix this right now, she walked back to her friends, moving slowly to give herself enough time to compose herself. She wiped her eyes, grateful for the sunglasses in her pocket that would hide her emotion. The others were where she’d left them, sitting on various logs in a loose bunch around the pile of food and supplies. Jill had arranged her expression into something like casual interest, but Carol and Sarah looked anxious.
“She agreed to a compromise.”
“What?” Jill said, leaping to her feet. “We never discussed—”
“Jill, quiet,” Carol said. “Let’s hear it, Fiona.”
Jill huffed in anger, crossing her arms across her chest. “Fine. So what’s this compromise?”
“A couple of days or so instead of—”
“Nope,” Jill said. “Not happening.”
“Would you can it, Jill?” Carol asked. “Jesus. Let her finish, for God’s sake.”
Fiona waited to see if Jill would fight back, and when she didn’t, she continued. “That’s it, really. That’s all I could manage. A few days—no more.”
“Well, it’s not good enough,” Jill said, shaking her head. “Nowhere near good enough.”
“No—I think it’s a good idea,” Sarah said. “It’s better than nothing. We’ll still get to see some of these woods, and everyone gets something they want.”
“Didn’t you hear me earlier?” Jill said. “She can’t stop us! We can keep going without her.”
Carol laughed. “Yes, and like we said—we’ll get lost. You know that as well as I do, Jill, especially if she doesn’t give us her map.”
“Why would she?” Sarah added.
“Exactly.”
“So that’s it?” Jill asked. “You guys are giving up? Carol—what happened to the chance of a lifetime?”
“Give me a break, here,” Carol said.
“And stop making everything so dramatic, Jill,” Sarah said. “You know as well as the rest of us that this is better. And really, I was only half-convinced it was a good idea to keep going at all. If it weren’t for Carol, I’d probably be heading back right now—on my own, if necessary.”
“But—” Jill said.
Everyone turned at the sound Roz’s approach, Fiona’s stomach fluttering with pleasure at the sight of her. Roz seemed calm, sure of herself again, her earlier anger gone now, or hidden. She was holding the map loosely folded in her hands. She opened it in front of the four of them, pointing down at it.
“About three days from here, there’s a side trail we could take out of the forest, toward Old Roach.”
“Old Roach? What’s that?” Carol asked, bending close to the map.
“It’s a ghost town, but it gets a lot of traffic this time of year—four-wheelers, off-roaders, mountain-bikers, that kind of thing. We probably wouldn’t have to wait long to ask someone for help. There will probably be people there already.” She looked up from the map and stared at Jill. “This is literally the only option. Everything else is too far away. Either we head there, or we go back right now.”
Everyone watched Jill to see how she’d take it. She was frowning, her face slightly mottled, but she kept her lips pinched tight. Fiona could see her visibly shaking with her effort to hold back. Finally, she nodded, clearly unable to speak without fighting.
Everyone seemed to sag with relief, and after a few brief words, they moved away to start packing.
Fiona held back and approached Roz, who was bent over the map again, studying it closely. She touched her shoulder gently.
“Thanks. And I’m sorry about them.” She meant Jill in particular, but that was implied.
Roz nodded and lifted her shoulders. “Like you said earlier—what can we do? At least this way we’ll get back to civilization sooner. It’s a shit compromise, but it’s all we have. Thanks for helping me, even if it’s not the best choice.”
“Will you get in trouble—with the forest service or whatever? If we wait, I mean? Don’t you have to report crimes right away?”
Roz tilted her head back and forth. “Yes and no. It would be the responsible thing to do in one way, but on the other, I’m obligated to guide the four of you in these woods. Technically, if I leave you alone, I would also be in trouble.”
Fiona smiled. “That seems like a reach, even to me. So why do it? You could just leave us here with the map. Why back down now?”
Roz took a step closer, meeting her eyes. “Because you asked me to,” Roz said, almost whispering. “No other reason.”
Fiona’s mouth went dry. Roz’s presence was forceful, almost overpowering, and it was all Fiona could do not to take a step closer to her and wrap her in her arms. She caught a faint whiff of sandalwood coming from the woman—warm and natural in this setting.
Fiona swallowed and then nodded. “Okay. I’m with you—wherever we go.”
Roz’s answering smile was broad and genuine, pleased for the first time since this started. Fiona was suddenly breathless. They were barely more than a foot apart at this point. All she would have to do is lean forward—
“Hey!” Jill called from behind her. “This tent won’t take itself down. Get over here and help, you lazy bum.”
Fiona couldn’t help a little groan of frustration. She turned toward her and yelled, “Just a sec!”
By the time she turned back, Roz was already walking away, and Fiona’s stomach dropped with disappointment. She didn’t think she was fooling herself, but she’d never been very good at knowing whether someone liked her. Still, she guessed Roz liked her more than anyone else at this point, and that was a start.
Chapter Six
After everyone had broken down their tents and packed their bags, they had a quick, cold breakfast of energy bars and jerky before heading out. Roz had explained that it would likely be about three days to the trail that led to Old Roach. The first and second day would be the same route they would have taken if they were going the whole length. The third, they’d be going off course, on a lesser-developed path. Altogether, it was slightly shy of sixty miles to the ghost town. If they did twenty today, closer to thirty tomorrow, and the rest the next day, they would make Old Roach long before nightfall of the third.
The woods beyond the meadow were thick and dark, much like yesterday before the boulder canyon. Already, the trees were changing slightly, with fewer cottonwoods the higher they climbed. Aspens were still plentiful, but for the most part the trees were different varieties of pine. Despite the gradual lack of leafy foliage, the pine here was dense and tall, and at ground level very little sunlight made its way down to them. So much of the Rockies in other parts of the state had been thinned out by the pine beetle, and Fiona found it strange to walk in a forest that hadn’t been affected by it. Her childhood hikes had been like this. She could vaguely remember seeing trees this old and thick here in Colorado maybe twenty or thirty years ago, ancient and grand.
Most of the ascent was gradual, with a few switchbacks up some steeper parts, the rest a gentle upward slope. Their campsite last night had been at near seven thousand feet, and Roz had told them the next camp would be closer to nine. Fiona was used to these kinds of elevations, but that didn’t necessarily make it much easier on her. With the weight of her pack and the constant upward slant, she was struggling within the first hour. Luckily, the trail followed the same river they’d walked along yesterday, which meant she didn’t have to carry as much water as usual. Every couple of hours, the five of them could stop and filter more into canteens, leaving their larger water bladders empty.
While the trail was generally easy to see and follow, Fiona could tell that, unlike more traditional, established trails, the one they were following hadn’t been fully devel
oped or dug out. Fiona had volunteered for several trail-breaking and maintenance crews in the past, and the labor of creating or maintaining any kind of trail was intense but long-lasting. Maintenance or building anew meant digging, cutting, and basically plowing a path through the woods, generally entirely with hand tools. What they walked on today was likely something natural—an old game trail, perhaps. Some work had been done here and there to cut the fallen trees and branches back, but the earth hadn’t been turned up and plowed.
For the most part their path was usually easy to see and follow, but occasionally the five of them had to stop as Roz got her bearings. She would pause, stare into the woods, sometimes glance at her compass, and then start walking. When this happened, it was rare that Fiona had guessed the right direction to continue—all directions were the same to the naked eye. Then, as they started walking again, she could occasionally see the subtle signs that this was, in fact, the trail. Whatever minimal work had been done to cut this path for them, it was subtle on purpose. The farther they went, the more certain she was that having a guide was an absolute necessity back here. Had they been on their own, they would have been totally lost. They could follow the river back to the road if it actually came to it, but that gave her little comfort out here in these dark woods.
Few talked in what remained of the morning and early afternoon. Roz maintained some distance, some twenty or thirty feet ahead, and Fiona suspected Jill knew she needed to keep quiet for now. Once or twice, Fiona caught her and Carol sharing a satisfied grin, almost seeming to gloat, but they were careful to do this when Roz’s back was turned.
In fact, the only time anyone spoke much before their late lunch was when they hit the bottom of a long, steep rock scramble. Approaching it, Fiona assumed they would start moving in a different direction, parallel to it, until they reached an easier ascent, but when Roz stopped and dropped her bag at the base of a tall boulder, she realized she was wrong.
“We’re going up that?” Sarah asked.
Roz nodded, grinning slightly.
“How?” Fiona couldn’t help but ask.
Roz laughed. “Very carefully. Actually, it’s easier than it looks. Everyone will be roped together, and we’ll go slow. I know a little shortcut.”
Fiona and her friends shared a dubious glance, and Roz laughed again. “Don’t worry, ladies. I’ve done it a hundred times. Get something to eat and rest for a few minutes before we head up. We’ll take another longer break at the top, so be quick about it now—a snack and some water.”
She wandered away, disappearing around the edge of another boulder. Fiona suspected that she would continue to keep her distance, from Jill, if no one else, until this was all over. The thought made shame and guilt swell in her chest, her throat constricting with tears. She took a couple of deep breaths and blinked, grateful again for her sunglasses.
“Is she serious?” Sarah asked, still staring up the scramble.
Jill clapped her on the back. “Don’t worry about it. The expert will tell us what to do.”
Fiona could detect sarcasm in her voice, and she was very glad Roz wasn’t here to hear her. She was going to have to tell Jill to shut it, and soon, or they might finally have a real fight. At some point Roz was going to lose it, and however confident Jill might be, she would lose.
The four of them sat down in the shade of the boulder, and it was blissfully cool in the thin mountain air. There had been little to no vegetation on the approach to the scramble, and the sun was scorching and fierce. Fiona was so relieved to release her pack that she had to stifle a moan. She could barely muster the energy to get a snack out of her bag, and her energy bar tasted like dust. She leaned onto her pack, closing her eyes, and started to drift almost at once.
“This is great, isn’t it?” Jill asked, startling her awake.
“Hmmmm?” She made herself sit up, rubbing her face.
“Out here, far away from everything and everyone. Isn’t it awesome?”
“Sure, Jill. Whatever you say.”
Jill frowned. “What the hell does that mean? Aren’t you glad to be here?”
Fiona sighed. She didn’t want to get into this with her now, so she shrugged.
“What are you guys talking about?” Carol asked. She and Sarah sat a few feet away.
“Nothing,” Jill said. “Fiona is being an asshole.”
“For God’s sake,” Fiona said, standing up. “What do you want from me? You want me to be excited about a bad idea? Cause I’m not. This is stupid. We should have gone back.”
“You’re the one who asked Roz to do this! I thought you wanted to keep going.”
“No, Jill. You did. And you bullied everyone into going along with you.”
“You didn’t say anything like this before.”
“Of course I did! You just didn’t listen. As usual.”
“But why—”
Roz appeared then, a coil of climbing rope hanging off one of her arms. She paused when she hit the shade, taking in the scene unfolding between them.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“It’s fine,” Jill said, standing up. “Fine and fucking dandy. Can we get this done already?”
Jill knocked Fiona with her shoulder as she walked by, and for a wild, tantalizing moment, Fiona almost pushed her back. She fought with her anger for the next ten minutes as the five of them roped up together, a loose loop around everyone’s waist. Fiona tied in fifth since she would be last in line behind Carol. Her blood was pounding in her ears, and she was even hotter than she’d been walking in the noontime sun. When they finally approached the scramble in earnest, her hands were still shaking with suppressed rage. She didn’t have time to be afraid of what was coming.
Nothing had prepared her for this kind of climb. Almost immediately, she realized she was out of her depth. Neither her months at the gym nor her training on the rock wall in town had equipped her for anything this strenuous or difficult. While the ascent wasn’t vertical, it was near enough that everyone was forced to nearly crawl on their hands and knees as they moved up the hill. Her boots slipped several times, and the drop onto her knees was worse each time. A little trickle of blood started running down her calf after her third of fourth slip, and her pack was threatening to pull her back and down the hill. The rocks here had pieces of quartz that scratched and cut her palms, skinning them, and she snagged a fingernail on one so hard and so painfully at one point that she called out.
“Okay back there?” Roz called from the front.
Fiona was biting her lip so hard she could only nod, but Roz, not hearing anything different, started moving again. Eventually the slack rope cinched her waist, and she was forced to start inching her way forward again. She lost count of how many times she slammed onto her knees, the weight of her pack throwing extra force into the pain. On top of all this, the sun shone on them as if it were trying to fry them on the rocks. Sweat was streaming into her eyes, stinging and hot, and she could do nothing to stop it, still busy trying to stop herself from falling backward into oblivion. Tears ran down her cheeks freely, almost of their own will, her mind focused, razor sharp, on moving onward, upward, for what felt like eternity.
When Carol stood upright in front of her, she realized it was finally over. Standing up herself, on solid ground at last, she immediately burst into tears. She was dimly aware of the others removing the rope around her waist and of someone finally steering her away from the cliff, gently pushing her into the shade of the nearby trees.
“Holy shit, look at her hands,” Carol said.
Fiona took a deep, rattling breath and finally opened her eyes. The others were clustered around her, clearly concerned, and she managed to shake her head.
“I’m okay. I’m fine.”
“Why don’t you sit down for a second. Take that pack off and let me see,” Roz said, moving forward.
“I’m fine,” she repeated.
Roz didn’t listen, gently removing Fiona’s pack. She pulled Fiona’s
arm, leading her to a thick trunk that had fallen near the tree line. Fiona sat down on it with numb legs, watching, detached, as Roz dug through her own pack for the first-aid kit.
The others were standing in a cluster some ten feet away, Jill looking distinctly guilty, Sarah and Carol concerned, almost scared. Jill was staring down at the ground, and Fiona’s throat constricted again, her shame back, wanting all this to be over.
“Let me see,” Roz said, grabbing her hand.
Fiona hissed at the pain but didn’t pull away. Her hands were bloody shreds, and the nail she’d pulled hung on her middle finger on a thread of bloody gore, the back of that hand dark with dried blood.
“Jesus, Fiona. Why didn’t you stop me?”
Fiona shook her head, unable to come up with a single reply. There was, after all, nothing to say. Even in the midst of perhaps the worst pain she’d ever experienced, she hadn’t once thought of asking for help.
Roz spent the next few minutes cleaning and bandaging Fiona’s hands. She started by simply washing off the crusted blood with clean water, causing the pain to sing through her, then wiped at them with several little alcohol pads, each of which was dyed a deep red by the time Roz discarded it. When she was done, the tip of Fiona’s finger was firmly bandaged, and her hands had been wrapped in gauze, almost gloved.
“That should do for now,” Roz said, sitting back on her heels. “We’ll need to change the dressing on your finger later since it’s bleeding so much.”
“Thanks,” Fiona said.
Roz touched her knee. “You don’t have to feel bad, Fiona. Anyone can get hurt. I just wish you’d said something earlier. You have to ask for help if you need it.”
“I wanted…” Fiona shook her head. “I didn’t want to slow anyone down.”
“You’ll slow us down more if you can’t keep going. No one will be mad at you if you need help.”
When Fiona didn’t reply, Roz put her fingers on Fiona’s knees, the sensation causing gooseflesh to rise all over her.
“I’m worried about you, you know,” Roz said.
From the Woods Page 7
