She dug it out and handed it over.
Unfolding it, I found the circled area, now a bit smudged, but still marked well enough.
“Where are we?” Lana peered at the map.
“About here, I think.” I tapped a spot in the circle. “Hang on.” Fishing my GPS unit from my jacket pocket, I pulled up our current coordinates. “Yeah. That’s about right. Dustin’s camp is close.” In fact, we were almost upon it.
I folded the map up and gave it back to Lana. Once she stowed it, we set off again.
Ten minutes later, we found the site.
He’d done a good job of erasing his presence, but there were little things that weren’t so easy to get rid of. Like the trampled vegetation and the holes in the ground from tent stakes. Or the charred remnants of a campfire.
“This looks clean.” Lana turned in a circle, surveying the area. “He didn’t leave in a hurry.”
“No. He was here, and he was fine when he left.” I moved around the perimeter of the site, looking for anything that said otherwise, like a bag of trash left behind, or a piece of gear, but there was nothing. Just a stack of firewood he never used.
“So, what now?”
“Now,” I paused, blowing out a breath. “Now, we need to figure out which way he went to go to that next campsite.”
One of her eyebrows rose. “How? There are footprints everywhere. Including ours.” She waved a hand at the ground.
“Tina said he wanted to check out an area near the eastern fork in the river, right?”
She nodded.
“Then, let’s go back to that fork we passed. I’m betting he took the same path we did to get here to go down there. It’s too steep and treacherous to go that way.” I pointed into the trees, where the terrain rose sharply.
I was also willing to bet he stuck close to the river most of the time, anyway. There was no need to go deep into the bush. The river was a great water resource, and the bears would go to it.
Lana adjusted her pack. “Lead the way.”
Chapter 6
Lana
Ibit back a groan and readjusted my pack as I followed Toren over a fallen pine. I thought I was in shape, but this terrain was testing that theory.
Stepping over a boulder the size of a mini-fridge, I grimaced at the burn in my calves. The trails around Juneau and Parker’s Landing were not good preparation for a wilderness hike. They were too flat and free from obstacles. Add in a full pack and a guide who, even though he was doing his best to slow down, still had a stride close to twice the length of mine.
“How are you doing back there?”
“Peachy.” Quickly, I erased the look of pain from my face and tried for a more pleasant, serene expression. The last thing I needed was for Toren to march me back to Walker and send me home. I’d come this far. I wasn’t leaving.
I eyed him, wondering at how he wasn’t even breathing hard. It wasn’t fair.
The sound of the river grew louder as we approached the fork. I could hear the rush of water over rocks. It was a constant roar that had become almost soothing as we walked, like a sound machine meant to focus the mind and drown out intrusive thoughts.
Latching on to the sound, I put one foot in front of the other, tuning out everything but the noise of the river and where I planted my feet.
I was so focused I almost walked right past Toren when he paused.
Stumbling to a halt, I glanced over. “Why did you stop?”
He nodded at something ahead of us. “We’re here.”
“What?” I turned and saw the river spread out before us, diverging around a bend in the mountainside. “Oh.”
