And then came a climb nearly straight up a mountain, scrambling up roots and rocks, holding onto trees forleverage. Switchbacks kept them from needing ropes to manage it, but just barely.
She stopped to appreciate the view at one point, and he told her, “We’re almost at today’s stopping point. This part of the trail gains around five hundred feet in elevation in less than a mile, but I promise the view at the top is worth it.”
Tuesday’s legs felt the climb, and she once again was in wonder that humans managed this trail. She was a wolf in good condition, and even she was breathing a little heavy. Her thighs burned, and she had topushherself up.
And then Knife made a right turn off the trail, and she followed him until the trees thinned, and the boulders and rocks they walked on came to a point with the view he’d promised, and he was right.
The climb had totally been worth it.
“Raven’s Point,” he told her.
Tuesday held onto a scraggly tree, stood with her toes near the edge of the point, and forgot to breathe.
The gorge spread below them, the ridge lines rolling away in every direction under an enormous blue sky. The wind whipped and whistled, the kind of wind that lived up here and didn’t visit — and the proof of that was the gnarled, twisted trees that didn’t merely live here, theysurvivedhere, roots gripping the bare rock with what could only be calledstubbornness. All were stunted, many with missing or broken branches, scraggly evergreen poking out like manic tufts of hair.
Not a classical kind of beauty, and yet, she found them exquisite. Strikingly elegant in twisted, contorted defiance.
Knife came to stand beside her, close enough she could feel the warmth off him in the biting wind.
“You were right. Completely worth the climb.”
They stood in silence for a long time, but eventually she walked back and sat on a little rocky ledge, ten yards from the edge.
She’d pulled her water bottle out a few times to drink, but now she was hungry, so she pulled her two silicone ziplock bags of trail mix out. One for her, one for Knife.
He stared at them in her hand, rolled his backpack off, reached in, and pulled two silicone bags of trail mix from his bag with a smile.
“My wolf detests eating food out of plastic,” she told him.
“But glass isn’t practical on the trail,” he finished.
She nodded and opened one of her bags. He leaned to look inside.
“Your own recipe?”
She nodded, and he studied the contents.
“Pepitas?”
When she nodded again, he asked, “What are the orange things?”
“Candied ginger.”
He picked one out and ate it, and the slight widening of his eyes told her it’d surprised him.
“That’s…interesting.”
“It’s good.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.” He studied her bag again. “Dark chocolate chunks. Dried cherry pieces. A nice variety of nuts.” A pause. “Is that flakysalt on top?”
“Maldon. I add it at the end.”
He looked at her, and before she even thought about it, she told him, “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
