Текст книги "Lost Canyon"

Автор книги: Nina Revoyr

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Chapter Twelve

Todd

They sidestepped down the slope, carefully at first, but then with bigger strides, using the natural steps formed by the slabs of rock. Above them the sky had turned a silvery blue. The peaks on either side of the valley were lit with brilliant light. Even in his state of exhaustion and worry, Todd couldn’t help but notice the beauty.

It took more than an hour to reach the first stand of trees, and once they were safely under its cover, they stopped and put down their packs. After carefully leaning the rifle against a boulder, Todd took off his shoes and shook out some pebbles. His toes looked and felt like they’d been pounded by a meat cleaver. His calf stung where he’d been scratched by a branch. Gwen sat down against a tree, crossed her arms on her knees, and rested her head against them. The dog came over and licked her hand and Gwen petted her without glancing up.

Tracy, still standing, tilted her head back and finished off what was left in her Nalgene bottle. “We’re going to need water.”

“Yeah, I’m almost out too,” Oscar said.

“There’s a couple of lakes farther on,” Todd said. “We can refill there. Or maybe we’ll cross a stream before then.”

“Let’s stay here for a minute.” This was from Gwen, who still hadn’t lifted her head.

They all looked at her. “We need to keep moving,” Todd said.

“I need to rest, you guys.” And now she looked up. The early-morning light revealed how tired she was—deep hollows had formed beneath her eyes, her skin looked gray, and wisps of hair had come loose from her ponytail. “We haven’t slept since the night before last, and haven’t had a meal since lunchtime yesterday. I’m exhausted, and I need to eat.”

Todd leaned toward her. Of all of them, she was the least suited for this trip to begin with, let alone for what they had to do now. And she’d seemed even more shaken than the rest of them by their encounters with José and A.J. But he couldn’t let himself think about that now. They had many miles to go, a formidable range to cross. He wasn’t entirely sure she’d be able to make it. “Gwen, look, we’re all tired. But we can’t stop yet. We may have someone behind us, we may have two guys behind us. And we need to open up some distance between us and them. If we wait, we’ll be an easy target for someone with a high-powered rifle. But if we get going, we’ll have a better chance. Once we get farther into the valley, we can stop for a rest.”

Gwen did not acknowledge his words; she stared straight ahead as if no one had spoken.

“He’s right, Gwen,” Tracy said gently. “We need to keep going. Let’s do this next stretch and then we can stop to rest. Okay?”

Todd was anxious to get moving—not only out of fear, but also because, although he wouldn’t admit it, he knew exactly how Gwen felt. Now that he was sitting and had his shoes off, he couldn’t imagine getting up again. His muscles were all tightening up; his left knee had gotten sore. He felt the lure of sleep; it was like the pull of the abyss, deadly, irresistible. He fought this and said, “We can do this, Gwen. We can go a little farther.”

Gwen still did not speak. The dog, who’d been sitting beside her, gave her a sly kiss on the leg. “All right,” she said finally. “But just give me a minute to deal with my feet.” She quickly took off one shoe, revealing a swollen heel and big toe, cut and applied some Moleskin. She retied the shoe and stood back up. Todd put his socks and shoes on too.

“Good job, Gwen,” Tracy said. She stripped off her jacket and stuffed it into her pack. Then she walked off in the direction they’d been heading, and the others fell in behind her.

They marched on without talking. The ground was nearly level; they were moving through the bottom of the valley. A bright blue Steller’s jay shot through a cluster of trees, turning sideways and touching each trunk lightly with its feet, like a skier running a slalom course. They passed a tree with a giant mushroom growing out of its side, like a white, fleshy ear turned downward to hear messages from the ground. Then Todd stopped to point out a clump of coarse black hair, stuck on the side of a tree.

“Look,” he said. “A bear used this tree to scratch his back.”

Oscar squinted at the hair, and shivered. “Wow, he must have been a big one.”

“Is there any other kind?” Gwen said. “Let’s keep going.”

They kept walking, a bit faster, and then suddenly they were out of the woods. It was lighter now, almost seven a.m. The peaks on either side of them were lit orange and gold in the early-morning sun. They were flanked by huge boulder fields, amazingly white, like giant snowballs that had rolled downhill. Beyond them, at the end of the valley, massive spires and sharp pinnacles with sheets of snow draped between them extended thousands of feet into the sky. Todd’s heart lifted, despite everything. He’d never seen such grandeur. He looked again at the corridor between the turrets and pinnacles, which framed the valley all the way to its end. It was like strolling down an avenue lined with cathedrals. It was like walking into the arms of God.

Directly in front of them was a basin they had seen from the top. But what, from that vantage point, had looked like a small break in the trees now revealed itself to be a bigger open space. It was probably a mile across, maybe more—the land was uneven, patches of green and brown interspersed with slabs of granite. In the middle of it all was the lake. A small stream fed into it and then flowed out the other side. This in turn, Todd knew, would eventually lead to other water, one of the countless rivers that rose up in California and flowed all the way to the sea.

“Well, there’s our water,” he said.

“Yeah, good,” Gwen said. “But look at those mountains.”

Now Todd looked up ahead of them and saw why Gwen was worried. He’d been so focused on the beauty around him that he hadn’t thought about what awaited when they got to the valley’s end. From the ridge, the peaks to the east had looked formidable but distant. From here, he could see the full scope of them. The range they had to cross was massive, a jagged spine of sharp barren peaks, easily over 13,000 feet. But he was still overcome by a sense of awe, and a sudden understanding of the land. The western Sierra built gradually, with gentle foothills and lush valleys and hospitable forests. Now they were approaching the starker eastern Sierra, where one plate of the earth had pushed under another and thrust the mountains into the sky.

“How are we supposed to get over those?” Oscar asked, sounding disheartened.

“We can totally do it,” Tracy insisted.

Oscar looked uncertain, even angry. “I don’t know, Tracy. I think we’re in deep shit.”

“We can do it,” Todd agreed. He was examining the peaks closely. “There’s that shoulder I saw before, between the two peaks. It looks lower than the rest of the range.” He paused. “There’s a pass way to the right too, but that looks farther away. I’m thinking left. That’s probably our best bet.”

But from the valley floor this seemed very high, and terribly far away. Todd’s confidence snagged, began to falter—but he fought this and looked squarely at the others. “Let’s go,” he said. “We need to keep moving.”

He expected some protest from Tracy, but she said, “Sounds good. Let’s do it.” Then: “But I’m thinking you should ditch your jacket, Gwen.”

Gwen turned to her. “Why?” She looked down at her fleece, which was fuschia. “Oh.”

“Do you want mine?” Todd asked.

“No thanks. Hopefully my shirt will be enough.”

They stepped away from the cover of trees and out into the open, and Todd flinched involuntarily, expecting a shot. Nothing came. They picked their way over the soft springy earth, passing boulders as big as trucks. With each step they could see more of the slope they’d descended that morning; it was bathed in brilliant light. There was no movement, and Todd was relieved.

“It doesn’t look like anyone’s up there,” Gwen said, as if reading his mind.

They all paused and looked back. “You’re right,” Tracy said. “Well, let’s keep moving before someone is.”

They walked on, the dog darting in front of them, charging up boulders to survey the land, sprinting ahead of them and then coming back. Her nose took in all of the interesting scents; she scratched the ground gingerly and peed on whatever she found. Finally she ran ahead and kept on running, disappearing over a rise. When they gained it, they saw where she was: at the edge of the first lake they’d seen from above, looking back at them, as if to say, Here it is! She tried to announce it but again the weird muffled bark; her mouth moved but they heard no sound. Awful as her muteness was, Todd was glad for it now—a bark here could be heard for miles around.

They scrambled down a clump of boulders and onto the flat land around the shore. As they filled up their bottles, they realized they’d left their water purifier behind.

“We’ll need to boil the water,” Todd said.

“It’ll be fine,” Tracy countered. “It looks totally untouched back here. Besides, what do you think the explorers did back in the 1860s? Or the Indians? You think they all had filters or SteriPENs?”

“This isn’t 1860. There’s a lot more people in these mountains. Plus, there’s all the animals.”

“Okay, but do you really want to take the time to set up the stove?”

Todd saw the logic in this. No point in worrying about bacteria if they were going to get shot trying to boil it away. “You’re right,” he said, and drank from his bottle. The water was so refreshing it brought tears to his eyes. He drank an entire thirty-two-ounce bottle, refilled it, and this time sipped more slowly. It was warmer today, and humid. The air was thinner too, and he understood that his slight light-headedness was not only exhaustion, but lack of oxygen. He noticed how pretty the lake was, crystalline blue, with the huge peaks set behind it. If they were still on vacation, if they were here to relax, they would have stopped at a place like this, swam and rested and enjoyed a leisurely meal, stretched out on the rocks in the sun.

But within five minutes they were moving again, around the lake’s shore to the left. The sun was high enough now that it was glinting off the water. Something broke the surface and gained the air, splashing down again: a fish. How good it would be to catch it and cook it, he thought. His stomach rumbled with hunger.

On the other side of the lake they climbed up onto another flat area. More peaks were starting to come out of the shadows and reveal themselves, like stage actors stepping into the light. Now they could see the lush green of the land, of the small meadow they were approaching. Springing from the green were wildflowers, purple and yellow and red, in shades so full and pure it was as if the rest of the world’s color was muted. He saw a cluster of lupine, not fully in bloom, each tubelike flower bright purple on top but still green at the bottom; they looked like caterpillars emerging from their cocoons. He shook his head at the strangeness of it all. This was a kind of beauty that few people ever saw. And at any moment he could be shot, he could be dead.

“What’s that?” Gwen asked suddenly, pointing to the ground with her pole.

Todd looked down at a huge pile of scat, dark brown and loose, as big as a pile of pine cones. Interspersed in it were bits of grass, and red berries, which seemed to have passed through the creature whole. “That,” he said, “would be bear scat.”

Tracy nodded. “We’re not the only ones who needed water.”

The muscles in Gwen’s jaws tightened, and even Todd felt a twinge of nerves. The bear hair on the tree could have been left at any time. This scat, though, suggested a bear was still close by. He glanced over at Tracy to make sure the bear spray was still clipped to her belt.

“How recent?” Gwen asked.

Tracy bent over and examined it. “It’s not super fresh, but it’s not old, either. I’d say it’s from within the last twelve hours.”

“Don’t worry,” Todd said, sounding more confident than he felt. “He’s likely to avoid us. We’re scarier to him than he is to us.”

“I don’t know, man,” said Oscar. “You guys keep saying that, but there were those killings just this year, in Yellowstone.”

“Those were grizzly bears,” Todd said, echoing Tracy’s reassurance of earlier. “Not black bears. We don’t have grizzlies in California.”

“And if they do come around,” Tracy added, patting the gun tucked into her belt, “we can always take care of them.”

“There’s no need for that,” Todd said. Why did she have to be like this? He was so angry at Tracy, and at himself, for allowing her to convince them to take an unused trail. For letting himself get carried away by someone else’s madness. “Besides, we don’t need to be shooting any guns. That’ll lead whoever’s out here straight to us.”

“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 to 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.