He nods.
"Main trails only," he says. "The side ones stop being marked fast. That’s why we patrol the parks, just in case."
"I figured that out."
He looks at Theo on the ground, then back at me, and there's a question in it that he doesn't ask.
"We just got here," I say, because it seems like the relevant information.
He looks at me for a moment. “Well, welcome to Silver Ridge. Make sure you get dry and warm.” That's it. He steps back, turns, and goes into the trees.
Theo watches him go. Then he holds up the pinecone.
"For the bird," he says.
"Magpies don't eat pinecones."
He considers this. "For me, then."
"Sure."
He puts it in his pocket and stands up and takes my hand, and we walk back to the hotel in the rain.
two
Ronan
Bootsmeetsmeatthe door, nose to my hand, quick check,you're okay, goodand then she steps back and lets me in.
I make dinner. Eat it standing over the sink. She parks herself on my feet while I wash up, which makes washing up harder, and I let her.
"Found a woman on the east trail," I tell her. "Her and a kid."
Boots doesn't comment on this. That's what I like about her.
I take my beer to the porch, and Boots comes out and puts her head in my lap. I scratch her ears and watch the dark, trying to figure out what I'm actually thinking about. The answer is her mouth. She had full lips with an adorable pout, even when scared. I know this is a stupid thing to be thinking about. I found a lost hiker, I walked her out, done — that's the transaction, I do it a dozen times a summer, and I don't sit on my porch afterward thinking about any of them.
I'd come through the trees running the standard read. Adult female, one child approximately four, adult carrying the child,posture tense but controlled, no visible injury. That's the job. Then I got closer and she turned and I saw her face, the mud on her jacket, dark hair wet and stuck to her neck, tired in that deep ongoing way that has nothing to do with the trail, and her mouth was pressed flat, chin up, scared and not showing it, and something just. Landed.
She looked at me the way people look when they're deciding if I'm a threat. I'm used to that. I'm a large person, strangers in the woods, fine. Usually it goes away once they see the pack and the radio.
With her it went away slower.
And then the kid grabbed my hair like he was checking the structural integrity and announced that I was very tall, like I might not have heard that before. They were equally as charming and cute.
Boots sighs heavily in my lap.
"I know," I say.
I finish the beer. Go inside. Don't sleep particularly well, but that's nothing new.
Two years ago, but the memories always come back in my dreams. I've got a SAR call from two years back that comes up some nights, a woman on the backcountry trail east of town, thirty-six hours before anyone reported it, twelve hours longer than we had. I worked it over for a year looking for a different answer and there wasn't one. Now I just let it come up, let it go, and check my gear.
I check my gear.
Boots follows me around the cabin while I do it, stepping over straps, nosing at the pack. When I finally get into bed she jumps up and turns three times and drops against my legs. I reach down and put my hand on her side in the dark.
A few days later, I'm at Murphy's picking up rope when I see them through the window.
