“I warned my boss that making me speak to donors was a bad idea. I belong in the field. Ionlybelong in the field.”
Stubborn. “Dad, for fuck’s sake, man, you’re usually the last man in the room to allow a blowhard to rile you up. You’re more educated, wealthier, and as for your “my boss” comment. You don’t have a bloody boss. You only pretend to follow protocol when it suits you.
“You’re still pissed that INCC wouldn’t let you fund and run the new nature preserve. Let me guess, Gerry wanted a special favor for his donation.”
“The twpsyn asshole wanted one of the trails named after his granddaughter. Seriously, Dag, the man is too old for that level of nonsense.”
Dagr coughed to cover his amusement. “I understand what you’re saying, Dad, but in the man’s defense, I’ve seen several of my friends with little children do the damnedest shit when teary eyes and quivering lips come out.”
Changing the subject, his dad added, “My boss,” emphasis on the word boss, “needs you to look over a contract to do with the new park information station. INCC is purchasing a fair bit of land outside Carmarthenshire—close enough to the reserve and the already popular tourist attraction, Carreg Cennen Castle.”
“Fine. Fine. Email me the particulars, and I’ll run through it when I get home.” Dagr was a solicitor with offices in London and Wales. His specialty was transactional law, focusing on contract drafting and negotiation, mergers and acquisitions, and ensuring compliance.
Dad’s boss—the pretend one—occasionally used Dagr’s services. Dad always tried to pay him, but that would never happen. He might not have the consuming passion for wildlife and land conservation that his dad toted around, but he’d been raised to respect the planet.
“Before I let you go, you know what you have to do to smooth things over with Gerry. Take him to lunch, buy him cigars and whiskey. He’ll forget all about the custom trail name.”
“Christ. Fine,” his dad spat out. “Weather coming your way, son. Best cut your run short this time.”
“I’ll make it,” Dagr blew the weather worry off. “Plus, I have a sat phone. If I get into trouble, I’ll be able to call my daddy,” he teased.
“Aren’t I lucky?”
twelve
BÉBHINN
Snowdonia Way Mountain Route
Daily Journal
Day 7 (Journal went missing on the fourth night and turned up this morning)
Pen-y-Pass to Capel Curig
Distance: 9.8 miles (15.9 km)
Total Ascent: 966 m (3,169 ft)
7:44 pm
Dad! You can’t even believe what’s happened! I would swear you’re haunting me, but you would never do anything that would put me through hell, so… I don’t know. The weirdest things have been happening on this hike.
I haven’t wanted to bring it up, just in case you can talk to Mom in her dreams and rat me out, but when I say weird, I mean weird.
Here is some of the crap I haven’t told you about. Flower bouquets on or in my pack—tied with grass. Definitely not an animal thing to do. Sometimes, I swear I see large shadows in the trees with my peripheral vision following me. (Okay, that could be my imagination. Still, it feels eerie, especially when we both know Wales doesn’t have big predators like you grew up with in Oklahoma.)
Missing panties. Dirty Panties!!! Now that I would put down to small animals, but I don’t leave my pack lying open. Never (or at least I think it’s never).
You may have noticed that this journal entry is for Day 7, and the last entry I wrote to you was at the end of Day 4. Yeah…my journal was missing from my room when I woke up the next morning. Like gone. Gone, gone.
I left a message for the B&B owners about the missing journal, begging them to please mail it to me if it turns up. I cried most of Day 5. I know you weren’t going to really read my letters, but… No but. In my mind, or my dreams, or whatever, you would read them. You would live this adventure through my words and read some of my feelings that I was too chicken to tell you…before.
So, how am I writing in the lost journal now? I found it in my pack this morning when I was checking supplies. That’s right. It was in my pack.
I get goosebumps just thinking about finding the damn thing snuggled up all perfect, untarnished brown leather and gold embossing in my pack’s pocket.
I mean, I’m not crazy, right? No seeing person could possibly miss a damn book in a backpack, no matter how thin. So what do you think? I mean, I’m half Irish and have lived in Ireland my whole life.
