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Lost Canyon

Page 18

by Nina Revoyr


  “I’m just saying.”

  “Let’s not even joke about it.”

  “Well, at least we have bear spray.”

  The dog, who’d still been running ahead, now came back. She approached the pile of scat and sniffed it curiously. Then she looked up at them, tail and ears lowered.

  “See,” Gwen said, “even she knows to be afraid.”

  But then the dog took off again, shooting ahead of them. “Let’s follow her lead and get going,” Todd said.

  They continued through the valley, the full sun now in their faces, the air feeling thick and uncomfortable. Every few minutes Todd looked back at the slope behind them, which seemed farther and farther away. No sign of life.

  They reached a second stand of woods, near the end of the valley; it felt wonderful to be out of the sun. They walked on until they reached a small clearing. Three huge boulders made up the edges on the near and left sides. Even if someone approached from the way they’d come, he could walk up to the boulders and not know they were there.

  “This is a good spot to take a break.” Todd stopped near a tree that had grown around a rock; it looked like a tired old woman who’d sat down to rest.

  “These are amazing,” Gwen said, looking up at the top of the largest boulder. It was as tall as a two-story house. “How the hell did they get here?”

  “Glaciers,” Todd replied. “They’re called erratics. They got carried down on a floe of ice.”

  “Like a bottle carried by the tide.”

  “Exactly.”

  They set down their packs, wandered off to relieve themselves, came back, and collapsed by the boulders. Tracy set up the stove and boiled water. The others had oatmeal but Todd needed something more substantial, so he ate a freeze-dried dinner. He’d started to get shaky from exhaustion and hunger; he’d never realized so clearly the relationship between food and the use of physical energy.

  “That was delicious,” Oscar said, finishing up.

  “I’m glad.” Tracy rattled her spoon in her bowl. “Because that’s the end of the oatmeal. Except for the one that Todd didn’t eat.”

  “What?” Oscar said.

  “We’re going to be out by tonight, so I only brought one for each of us.”

  “Well, what else do we have left?” Gwen asked.

  “Whatever you have left. You all have at least one freeze-dried dinner, right? And whatever snacks you brought.”

  A somberness descended on all of them.

  “I’m pretty much out of snacks,” said Oscar. “I think I have half an energy bar.”

  “I just ate my last dinner,” Todd said.

  “You can share mine if you want,” Gwen offered. “I have that and some Luna Bars.”

  “I have some jerky and my dinner. And a couple of bars.” Tracy paused. “Look, we’ll be fine. We’ll be over that range tonight, tomorrow morning at the latest. As long as we’ve got water, we can make it a day without food.”

  Oscar didn’t look convinced. Gwen either. Todd knew that Tracy was right, but he was still annoyed—they should have talked about this before they left their stuff. But right now, he was too tired to think about their food supply and how much farther they had to go. He had eaten a real meal for the first time in twenty hours, and the heaviness of sleep was upon him.

  “Why don’t we rest here for a bit,” he suggested.

  “Great idea,” Gwen agreed.

  “I think we should keep going,” Tracy said. “We have momentum now.”

  “Tracy,” Gwen said deliberately, “I know we’re in a hurry. I get it. But I’m so tired I can barely walk straight. We have a big uphill climb coming, and if I don’t get some rest, I’m never going to be able to do it.” She petted the dog absentmindedly; even the dog seemed to agree. She was spread out on her side, feet twitching, fast asleep.

  “She’s right,” Todd said. “Let’s everyone recover a bit. Take a nap, you guys. Oscar, can you set your alarm? We’ll leave again in an hour.”

  “Sure,” Oscar said, looking relieved. He fiddled with his watch.

  Tracy shrugged, but relented. “All right.”

  Todd set the rifle down within arm’s reach. It was only a .22 caliber, and pretty old at that—but at least it would provide a measure of protection. He lay down where he was, using his pack as a pillow and the lid of his cap to shade his eyes. Now that they weren’t moving the air was cool, and the breeze felt good on his face. A few small rocks pressed into his back, but he was too exhausted to care. Almost as soon as his eyes were closed, he fell asleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Gwen

  A cold, wet nose against her jawbone, a whiskery muzzle, a warm tongue licking her skin. Gwen yelled, “Hey!” and pushed the dog from her, but when Timber saw that Gwen was awake, she rushed in again, grunting happily. For a moment Gwen forgot why she was there—and then she remembered everything. Their hike, the wrong turn, José, and then A.J.; the confused and hurried nighttime hiking. She looked at her watch: 1:17. Shit! They had stopped at nine thirty, had laid down around ten, and were supposed to rest for an hour. What happened?

  “Hey, you guys!” she called out, struggling to get up through her soreness. “Hey! We slept too long! We need to get going!”

  Behind her Tracy stirred. Gwen shook Oscar by the shoulder, and then Todd. The dog trailed after her, licking everyone’s faces, pawing at arms and shoulders.

  Oscar and Todd sat up groggily; Tracy was already on her feet.

  “Jesus Christ!” Todd exclaimed. “What happened? How’d we sleep so long?”

  Oscar was fiddling with his watch. “I think I set the alarm wrong. I set it for eleven p.m., not a.m.”

  Todd’s face flushed. He got to his feet and took a few pacing steps. “Goddamnit, Oscar.”

  Gwen was angry too. How could he have? How could he have messed up such an obvious thing?

  “I’m sorry, you guys,” Oscar said. “I fucked up.”

  “You fucked up, all right,” said Todd, whirling around. “We lost two hours. We gave them two more hours to catch up with us, and now . . .” He looked at his watch. “Now we’re smack in the middle of the day, when anyone can see us.”

  Oscar fiddled with the zippers of his pack and didn’t reply.

  “Look, there’s no use making a stink about it,” Tracy said calmly. She had her pack on already. “All we can do is just go, all right?”

  “I’m really sorry, guys,” Oscar said again. Then absently, “I can’t find my damned Clif Bar.”

  “I’m missing mine too,” said Tracy. “One of you hungry people steal it while I was sleeping?”

  “No,” Gwen said. And then she saw two torn-up wrappers just outside their circle, with several visible tooth marks.

  As if on cue, Timber came over and licked her. This time Gwen noticed the hint of peanut butter on her breath.

  “The friggin’ dog went right into my pack and took it,” Tracy said.

  “Goddamn,” Oscar said.

  “A.J. did say she was a scavenger,” Todd remarked.

  “I know, but shit, that was the only one I had.”

  “It’s all right,” Gwen said. “You can have some of my stuff.”

  “Plus, we’ll be out of here soon,” Tracy added.

  Gwen hoped so, because despite her offer to Oscar, she was worried about their lack of food. Already she’d felt light-headed and wobbly-legged—and it looked like the hardest part of their hike was yet to come. But she couldn’t worry about that right now.

  Within five minutes they were hiking again. They didn’t speak; they were sober and scared. And yet Gwen, despite her stiffness and to her surprise, was actually feeling better. She’d needed the sleep, and she felt replenished. The Moleskin made the pain in her feet bearable, and her knee was holding up. Her body had grown accustomed to hiking; it moved more easily through space and discomfort. And while she wished they had more food, she couldn’t really begrudge the dog for raiding their supply; she’d been glad when
Timber had caught up with them on the trail. She liked having something sweet and alive to keep her company. The dog’s energy and joy were helping push her along.

  In another ten minutes they’d reached the edge of the woods and they stepped into the open again. They were near the end of the valley, at the foot of the range they’d first seen yesterday, with a steep, exposed climb ahead. And yet Gwen felt good, almost exhilarated, that they had gotten this far. The climb would be a challenge, she knew—and it was hotter today, and the altitude was making it hard to breathe. But it was the final challenge. Once they reached the pass, it was just a long walk down to the Owens Valley. They wouldn’t be back in civilization, not quite yet. But they’d be able to see it was there.

  “I think we go up along the right,” Tracy said, and they all looked to where she was pointing. It did seem to be less steep in that direction, and it was possible to imagine a route.

  “Where’s the pass, though?” Todd asked. This close to the range, they could no longer take in the whole of it. The gaps that had seemed so obvious from farther back were now obscured.

  “To the left of us, the one you saw before. I think it’s beyond that little peak there, right past that darker outcropping.” Tracy pointed. “I noticed it while we were at the lake. I was looking for a landmark we could see from here.”

  Todd nodded. “So we bear right, and then cut back to the left.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “That looks like a lot of loose rock,” Oscar said. “Are you sure we can make it up that way without sliding?”

  No one answered for a moment, and Gwen realized that Todd and Tracy were so irritated with him that they were ignoring him altogether. But now Tracy turned to him, with a show of patience. “No, I’m not. But I am sure that if we go up more directly, we’ll run into vertical rock. So I’ll take my chances.”

  They began to hike—Tracy first, Oscar behind her, followed by Gwen, with Todd bringing up the rear. They walked over hard-packed earth, granite, and pockets of mossy growth, sometimes pulling themselves up on slabs of rock that were too big to gain in one step. There were two, three tiny streams of snow melt trickling down. The peaks were offering water from their snowcaps to the lower elevations, feeding the rivers and lakes. In some of the green pockets a few wildflowers grew, hearty clusters of maroon, clumps of purple and blue, the orange and yellow candy-looking plant she’d seen two days before, that Todd had identified as columbine. There were rock shelves with bursts of bright pink flowers growing out of every crag. But she couldn’t really enjoy this beauty, could only acknowledge it distantly; she was becoming too aware of the opposite ridge and the valley behind them and the chance that someone was there. When she looked back, though, she saw nothing, just empty sloping land, starting to darken in shadow as the sun moved west.

  She had no idea how long they hiked, so skewed was her sense of time. Then the last of the ground cover gave way and they were in a higher, open landscape—rock and scree, just as Oscar had noticed. The slope was dotted with windblown trees, cinnamon-barked and sturdy, swirled into shapes that made them look alive, like trees from a fairy tale. But even these would disappear as they moved farther up. The top of the range was a monolith of brown and gray, stark and barren as the moon. They could make out the jagged tops of the peaks here, and they looked sharp enough to cut.

  It was getting harder to hike, harder to cope with the heat, harder to put her feet down without them sliding out from under her. She chose larger rocks that looked more stable but each step was an effort; she felt her calves and thighs begin to quiver. Two, three times she slipped and used her poles to catch herself. Once something scurried between the rocks—a furry brown animal the size of a terrier. Gwen gasped.

  “Marmot,” Todd explained. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “We’ve been going an hour,” Tracy called over her shoulder. “And we’re making good progress. I think we can reach the pass before dark.”

  No one answered, and Gwen realized that the others, like her, were struggling just to breathe. They weren’t on any trail here; they were picking their way up through steep, uneven rock. They must have been at an elevation of ten or eleven thousand feet by now—Gwen breathed fast and hard but she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs. She wondered if the others felt the same. They kept trudging, climbing, sweat streaming down their bodies as they labored upward in the afternoon sun. Blisters had started to form on her hands from the friction of the poles. The reflection of the light off the granite was so intense that she couldn’t look at the peaks directly, not even with her sunglasses on.

  A cloud moved over and they were suddenly in shadow. The sun emerged again, and then another cloud, followed by a gust of wind.

  “That feels good,” Gwen said aloud.

  “Yes, finally,” Todd said. “Some shade.”

  Then they heard a rumble of thunder.

  “Uh-oh,” said Oscar, and they all stopped to look. Dark clouds were coming in over the peaks. They were approaching fast. In another few minutes the bottoms of the clouds were visible, perfectly flat and very dark. There was a sudden flash, as if a lightbulb had been lit inside a cloud. No sound for several seconds. And then it came—a deep rumble that started on the other side of the mountains and came toward them like a giant, charging beast. In front of them, the dog lifted her head and gave a mute bark. The hair on her scruff stood up straight.

  “We’ve got to move quick,” Tracy said, “before it reaches us.”

  “We can’t outrun it,” said Todd. “It’s going to be here any minute.”

  “What do we do?” Gwen asked, trying not to sound panicked. Before the trip, she’d worried about lightning as much as she’d thought about bears. She had convinced herself the fear was irrational.

  “Well, we can’t stay here,” Tracy said. “We could try to go back down to tree cover.”

  Todd shook his head. “No. We’ll never make it down in time.”

  “We need to get near some boulders then, not be the highest thing.”

  “Nothing here is really big enough.”

  “So what should we do?” Gwen asked again, and in the time before anyone answered, there was another burst of light, an actual bolt this time, nearly sideways, still contained by the cloud. As if the lightning were a new life trying to break from its shell, cracking the surface open from within. Then a few seconds later, a crash of thunder.

  “We need to get up to that clump of trees!” Todd shouted. He was pointing toward a small stand of windblown pines. It still looked far away. The dog circled back and tried to press herself against him, tail between her legs.

  “Are you supposed to be near trees in a lightning storm?” Oscar asked.

  “Not a single tree. But a group of them is good.”

  Gwen glanced over to the opposite range, which was still in the sun, even as the sky to the east grew dark. The clouds were building on each other, layer after layer, like an avalanche tumbling uphill. They now crossed over the top of the range, rain falling in wavering sheets. Gwen couldn’t believe how exposed they were, how helpless. They might have been pioneers, it might have been 1850, for all the defense they had against the elements.

  “Let’s get moving,” Tracy urged. Another bolt of lightning, followed by thunder, which opened into itself, each crack fuller and deeper and louder than the last. The dog barked and did a panicked little dance around them.

  They had switchbacked left in the direction of the trees, and now they attacked the slope at an angle. The wind picked up, howling as it swept through the canyon. It sounded like a living thing. Gwen tried not to look to her right at the approaching storm, but she couldn’t help it. In front of them a lone bird took off from the ground and was swept sideways and away, like a leaf.

  A bright flash lit the entire sky, followed by thunder so loud Gwen thought the earth had cracked open. The sound traveled down into the valley, rolled and rumbled between the walls, turned a corner, and continued t
o rage. The echoes then joined with the original sound and thundered all over again.

  “Let’s get a move on!” Tracy shouted, and she started to run, slipping with every third or fourth step.

  The clouds swirled, black and gray, and now the last of the sun was blotted out. The sky was dark as night. This is not just seeing a thunderstorm, Gwen thought. This is coming face-to-face with one. This is entering the place where storms are made.

  “We’re almost there!” Tracy yelled over the wind. The stand was maybe a hundred feet away. Then the sky went even darker and the storm was upon them.

  Rain, harder and colder than any Gwen had ever known, soaked her to the skin. The wind blew her hair into her face; the straps of her pack whipped and hit her. Gwen cursed herself for leaving her rain gear behind. But then the sky went white again, blinding, followed by a crack of thunder so violent she felt her feet take leave of the ground.

  They reached the trees and Todd yelled, “Throw your poles and your pack away from you! Crouch down on the ground! Put your hands behind your neck! And spread out!”

  Gwen moved in frightened disbelief. Spread out? Leave the others when she wanted to huddle with them? But everyone else was moving, and so she did too, dropping her poles and her pack, scrambling twenty feet downhill, crouching between several trees and covering her head. The dog burrowed into the space between her legs and arms. Gwen had thought the trees would make her feel safer, but they were scrubby and small, and they whipped and tossed so violently she thought the wind might pull their roots from the ground. No matter what Todd said, she would have felt better under a wide-trunked pine.

  “Don’t move, you guys!” Todd shouted. “Just stay like that! Hold tight!”

  Another crack of thunder, then two quick flashes, followed by a deep, slow rumble, as if the gods had taken hold of the peaks and were shaking them. The ground trembled beneath Gwen’s feet and she started to pray, eyes closed, heart in her throat, choked with terror. She could hear Oscar praying too, pleading to see his family. She had never felt so powerless, so small. Up the slope, Tracy was letting loose a curse with every new flash of light. “Mother fucker!” she yelled after an especially close strike. “Move on, you fucking fuck!”

 

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