by M K Dymock
“What, you afraid of having to use your own feet to walk out?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact I am. I am far too old to walk all that distance, and you are far too out of shape.”
She stopped, seemingly stunned for a moment, before realizing he was teasing her. She laughed out loud. “You’re not wrong. I used to lope over these mountains, and now I get tired after ten miles.”
“Sad. Hard to watch people let themselves go.” He liked hearing her laugh—liked it too much. The crows screeched above them as they walked—or slid their way down the other side. “Acting very territorial,” Sol said.
The rock gave way to bright green weeds that butted up against the first of the glaciers. Wildflowers pushed through the mud in between the snow and the grass, eager to bloom for the short time they had. Sol followed the direction of the crows while Hylia stayed in his tracks. He’d taught her how not to mess up a trail.
She stopped and pointed. “I think I see something.” She took the lead to a patch of dirt surrounding a fifteen-foot square of grass that was a slightly different shade of green than the surrounding area. She pulled out the camp shovel from her pack and began digging at the edges.
The smell of compost overtook the summer air as she pulled back the first layer under the roots. She knelt next to the garbage, pulling her bandana over her face. Sol stood behind her. The first thing she came across was the bones and hair of an animal.
“Coyote,” said Sol. “Looks like an older cache going by the state of things.”
She stood. “There’ll be others. The birds wouldn’t hang around for picked-over bones.”
It took a few more hours to prove, but she was right. They found two more, and the birds went nuts in their calls when they unearthed the last one. They slipped on gloves to rummage through what remained.
“Merrell would burn everything flammable.” She yanked out a bean can. “It doesn’t expire for another two years.”
Sol excavated the other side of the pile. It took some digging, but he pulled out a prize—a newspaper. It had been torched, but probably in a hurry. They’d set fire to the inch-thick stack rather than bundling it up as kindling. As he pulled it out, most of it disintegrated in his fingers coating them in a grimy black. One corner remained intact.
He gently pulled back the first page and another. The farther back he went, the more the burn receded from the corner. Two-thirds through, he found what he was looking for.
“Hylia.” She came up behind him, her footsteps noiseless in the high grass. “Three weeks ago.”
Her hand shuddered as she took the paper from him. “They were here less than three weeks ago?” The tremor of her voice matched her hands. “Merrell bought a paper in Summit and then came here. How many days could he have taken to find this place? How long did he stay?” She stared into Sol’s dark eyes, pleading. “We have to be close.”
He would find them for her; he had to.
Mud surrounded the snow, but the soil grew more solid the farther out they walked. It was there they found the first print, solidified by the rising temperatures. Only the toe of a hiking boot remained, a mere indent in the soil to anyone besides Sol. He kept moving forward, Hylia’s hand on his back as if she feared him disappearing as well.
The trail grew stronger until they found an almost full print. Sol stopped and hunched down. She used his back as support and leaned over. Using a finger, he outlined the contoured edge in the mud. “Can you see it?”
She leaned down until her face hovered a foot over the mud.
“If you look here, you’ll see–”
“I see it.” The hand still placed on his back gripped his shirt. “It’s my father.”
43
Hylia hadn’t seen any trace of her father in almost ten years—not a glimpse of his face nor the sound of his voice. Would she even recognize it if she heard him? She closed her eyes and tried to conjure up a pleasant memory.
Once she’d crossed the threshold between child and adult, they’d stopped talking as much. Talking usually ended in arguing. Was that how all kids ended childhood? He’d said as much, but she didn’t listen—certain no one had as bad a father as she had.
Sol climbed to his feet. “How do you know it’s him?” he asked.
“See that indent on the left toe?”
“Yeah.”
“When he was a kid, he broke his leg, in these mountains actually. His dad didn’t take him to a doctor right away, and it’d never healed right. He always walked with one leg dragging just enough to wear down his left boot quicker than his right, eventually leaving a hole in the tread.”
He stood and peered around at the high peaks surrounding them.
“Sol, how long ago did he leave that?”
He turned his attention back the single mark. “Hard to say when the last rain was. Storms pile up on the high peaks without touching the surrounding areas. Each area is its own micro-system. Older than yesterday, but not as long ago as last week.”
Hylia stood within a few days of her family or what was left of it. A rare good memory surfaced from her agitated past. Link had been sick for several days, his hacking a constant reminder of what they lacked. Her dad stayed by his side, constantly boiling water for the shuddering boy to breathe over.
She didn’t sleep for most of that week, certain her baby brother would die. They ran low on food supplies, and she became possessed with the idea if she could only bring back some meat Link would be cured.
One morning while her father slept a few hours and Link tried, she snuck out of their tent, rifle in hand. She was fourteen. It wasn’t the first time she’d handled the weapon; lessons had been offered in the previous months. Most of their meat came from trapping and bows to avoid the attention the sound of a rifle would bring. That month, however, ushered in hunting season, and they’d heard the occasional report of a gun.
She struck out at dawn on a clear October day. Her shoulders relaxed at the sound of silence for the first time in weeks. Link’s unending cough kept her in a constant state of anxiety—both waiting for his next breath and dreading it.
The only notice she’d left her father was a charcoal note on a large boulder near their tent. “Gone walk; back lunch.” Charcoal didn’t lend itself to lengthy diatribes.
Hylia had every intention of being back by dinner—at the very latest. She figured Merrell would panic if she said all day but would give her a few hours of wiggle room if she turned up late. The morning proved fruitless as she saw nothing worth taking a shot at. After another hour, she called it a day and turned back to make the long walk back to camp.
She’d failed her brother and hated on herself for that. Each step dragged through the mud, prolonging her trip back. It wasn’t just discouragement that slowed her; the morning had dawned cold with frozen earth, making the going easier. Now with the afternoon sun, she sank and slid.
The hours crept on, and, rather than finish the giant circle she’d planned or retrace her steps, she cut through the middle. This took her through a rough area of the mountains she wasn’t as familiar with. Link’s illness had kept them cooped up and in one place far longer than usual.
The last few years in these mountains had granted her confidence in her ability, and she struck out through the unknown area. Her plan would’ve worked up until the river that had no business running that fast and high that time of year. Except her young teenage mind didn’t believe it was running that high or that fast. Only arrogance possessed her to slip off her boots and sling them over her shoulder to wade in.
Five feet across and her feet slipped out from under her, her butt slamming into a moss-covered rock. She hit hard, but it was the cold melted glacier water that caused her to scream out.
She tumbled through the rapids until she managed to crawl onto a boulder that divided the river into two. She put two trembling fingers to her lips and blew out three trills, mimicking a bird call. Her father sent out that signal when he wanted her and Link to come in a h
urry. Maybe the reverse could do the same. He had to be out looking for her by now. She called again and again.
Time slowed as she waited for help, but her lips grew numb, and the water soaked through her jeans. Once she lost the sun, she’d lose any chance to cross. She slipped into the waters’ depths.
Just as she thought she’d made it through the worst, a hole opened up, sucking her into the current. Her scream lasted as long as her breath did—a split second. The river swept her away, and she fought for every breath she failed to take. How long it carried her she had no idea. Finally she sensed the water slowing, her feet finding solid ground. She crawled to the edge of the river.
Blackness darkened her vision, and she he had a brief thought this must be what Link felt like before unconsciousness took over completely.
She woke with her dad pounding on her chest as she vomited river water into the mud beside her. The coughs felt like they ripped something deep inside her, but the breaths that followed were miraculous.
She sobbed into the soil as he yelled at her. “You can’t do that. You can’t be stupid. You’re all that’s left.”
His words floated over her as she clawed the mud as if clinging to it would help her cling to life. Once she found her breath and he’d finished chastising her, he switched shoes with her. She laced up his hiking boots as tight as she could to keep them on. Her toe almost pushed through the sole, but she didn’t complain.
“Dad?” He didn’t correct her as he usually did. “How are you going to walk back?”
“Quickly.”
Hylia still didn’t understand how he could be such different men. Had he been more her father and less Merrell, she wouldn’t have left.
She and Sol sped up the search now that they had a direction. It was still slow going; they periodically lost and found the trail. “He’s not hiding it as well as he was,” Sol said as they found the next set.
“He wouldn’t, not this high up without suspecting he’s being followed. He’ll hole up for a few weeks at a time during the summer.”
“You make him sound like some rich person on Cape Cod.”
She laughed. “The beard down the middle of his chest would make him stand out a bit on the Cape.”
“You’ve been there.” He didn’t conceal his incredulousness.
“I worked a lot of places that have seasonal workers. Easier to slip in and out.” Her summer on the Cape had been the only one. Even without a beard, she stuck out far too much from the preppies.
“Since Catherine didn’t know of any mines this far up, do you have any other ideas?”
“After I left, they didn’t return to any site I’d been to before.”
“You’re his daughter.”
“And?”
“If you changed your mind or he really thought your life was in danger, he’d need to give you a way to come home.”
That had been the kicker, hadn’t it? It wasn’t that she was separated from her family; it was that even if she wanted to return, it wasn’t allowed. “I don’t think he could ever trust me again.”
“He’s your father.”
“And your being here with me is proof he was right. I have proved untrustworthy.”
Sol stopped and took a step back to her. “Is that what you think? That you’re betraying your family?”
His dark eyes stared down at her until she looked away. “There was only one rule—don’t bring the outside world in.”
“You didn’t betray your father, Hylia. He betrayed you.” She found his eyes again. “He was supposed to take care of you.”
“That’s what he thought he was doing.”
“Intentions don’t matter. Not when he hurt you, and not if he killed your mother.”
She flinched at those words. It was the first time in several days he’d mentioned her mother. “You think he did it?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think happened twenty years ago. What matters is the here and now.”
She appreciated he didn’t ask her what she thought. The past still mattered but not as much as the present. “We’ve got to find her. That’s what matters.”
“What are we going to do when we find him?”
How long had it been since she’d been part of a we? “He let me and my brother wander the woods pretty far without supervision. I’m hoping we can get my niece away from him. Then . . .”
“Then what?”
She was wrong; the past did still matter to her. She locked eyes with him with that same defiant look. “Whatever we have to do. He killed my mother; I’m not protecting him anymore.”
44
Sol no longer recognized the terrain they traversed. He’d never ventured this far north. For a man who’d spent most his life on the move, those movements had carried him mostly in circles around home.
The woman raised in the woods knew more about the world than he did.
“Where’s the farthest you’ve traveled?” he asked. They’d stopped to fill their water packs at a spring, running the water through a filter.
She gulped before responding. “Spent a summer in Peru. I was too scared to come back here, but I couldn’t bear to be away from the mountains. I guided a few trips into the Andes.” She stared around the snow-covered peaks not that high above them. “As much as I wanted to leave this place as a kid, I kept coming back to these mountains. They anchor you.”
“I should’ve gone to Mexico,” Sol said. “I should’ve taken my grandfather to see his cousins one last time. I should’ve gone with my wife to visit her folks in California. I shouldn’t have been so afraid of the world.” He’d never admitted that before—not even to himself.
“The more my dad isolated himself from it, the more afraid of it he became.”
“What kept you from being afraid of the world?” Sol knew why he’d asked the question; he just didn’t want to admit it.
“I don’t know. There were nights I slept on the street because my latest boss stiffed me and the shelters were full.” She brushed off her pants, but the dirt had imbedded itself in the threads. “Maybe I had nothing to lose. The worst thing that could happen to a child had already happened. Maybe if I had someone, I’d be more afraid.”
“I have no one, and I still haven’t left these mountains. Maybe I should’ve taken a page out of your book. You’re brave, you know.”
“That’s a load of crap.” She walked past him to continue down the trail. He laughed at her turned back. He wasn’t used to upsetting a woman with a compliment.
“I don’t regret it,” she said without facing him. “At least I didn’t—before Link. I wanted to live—not just survive.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
She stiffened but still didn’t turn. “I didn’t say goodbye,” she whispered. “I didn’t tell him I was going; I went into town for supplies and never came back.” Sol took a ginger step closer. “I told myself it was because he wouldn’t go with me. But the truth was I didn’t want to have to take care of a fifteen-year-old. I figured he could join me in a few years. I was going to be an adult—all on my own.” She choked the last word out.
Sol reached and grasped her clenched fist. She relaxed her hand into his and leaned back on his chest. He wrapped his other arm around her waist. He said the only thing he knew how in these situations. “I’ll . . . we’ll find her.”
After a moment—or maybe few—they broke apart and continued on. He followed in silence, his eyes on her spry figure. Maybe he was done with the whole not-living thing.
After about a half hour of hiking in silence, Hylia stopped, put a finger over her mouth, and then pointed. He moved closer until he could see what she saw. Ahead of them, maybe a quarter mile, a porous black cliff rose out of the low meadow still covered in snow.
Hylia leaned closer to Sol’s ear. “This is the kind of area he’d like to set up camp.”
Sol could see why, especially knowing the man’s MO. The meadow would provide a steady water source, and the rocks would likely h
old some sort of cave or overhang. The cliff face disappeared into the trees, making it impossible to tell how long it ran. If David had made it his home, he could still be a good distance away and watching their every step.
The tracks grew more frequent. Hylia’s pace quickened, and Sol found himself in a slow jog to keep up—until they left mud and crossed snow. The glacier slowed down their steps as they sank into the melting snow. She broke through the upper crust, up to her hips.
Sol kept a few feet back but grabbed her hand and pulled her out, dragging her across the snow. Her foot came out of the snow soaking wet. She gasped. “Holy cow.”
The reason for the fall showed through the hole. A stream of water, running to the edge of the snow, cut underneath the glacier, making it a thin crust. Only a foot of snow separated them from the rushing creek.
Hylia stood up, brushing the slush from her clothes.
“You okay?” Sol asked.
“Look.” She got down and crawled the edge of the hole with Sol grabbing onto her shirt to pull her back. Stretching out, she reached into the gap and a grabbed a bundle of sticks wrapped with grass stuck into the side hole. She pulled it out and retreated to thicker snow.
“What is it?” He stared at the sticks fastened together with pieces of grass. “A little boat?”
“No, it’s a ferry to go see the whales in.” Her voice softened as memories he had no part of flashed across her face. “Like the ones we took with our mom out to the islands where we saw whales. Link would make them and send them down whatever moving water we found in hopes they’d reach the ocean.” Hylia stood, using Sol’s pant leg as leverage. “He would’ve taught his daughter.”
Sol’s senses heightened. The little toy wouldn’t stay together long under these conditions. He took three deep breaths to keep the adrenaline from forcing poor decision making. Running around in circles wouldn’t get them far.
They made their way back across the glacier to where they could be sure they walked on solid snow. “What about your foot?” he asked.