Bob appears by my side. For a big guy, he moves with surprising stealth. He glances from my tent, still in its drawstring bag, to me.
“If you could start gathering wood for the fire, I can set up your tent,” he says.
I’ve never been so grateful.
I walk circles around the emerging campsite, picking up kindling, then bigger sticks, then just random dried twigs, because at this stage of the game, to stop moving is to collapse, and I can’t afford to drop dead. I spiral out farther, weaving through the closest screen of pines before eventually stumbling across Miggy. He’s sitting at the edge of the massive lake, tucked behind wavy grasses and looking at nothing in particular.
I glance back at the campsite, a distant whir of activity I can barely make out through the trees. Then I set down my armful of dry twigs and take a seat next to Miguel.
I don’t speak. In this day and age, we all talk too much and hear too little. Listening has become a forgotten art that the world is sorely missing.
“I’m sorry,” Miggy says shortly. He picks up a rock. Throws it at the lake. It lands with a small plop.
“How are you feeling?” I ask him.
“Terrible. Like a guy who works a real job day after day, because that’s the responsible thing to do, then once a year gets thrown back into the mountains because my best friend who disappeared five years ago happened to love camping, and his father has hated us ever since.”
“You don’t hike on your own?”
“What’s your name again? Frankie?”
“Frankie.”
“Take it from me, Frankie, I would never step foot on a trail again if I had my choice. And Josh, Neil, Scotty—they agree with me. We lost enough that night. Martin’s yearly death marches don’t make anything better. They just torture us all over again.”
“Is that why Josh drinks so much?”
“Maybe. You’d have to ask him.”
“Are you four still in touch?”
Miggy picks up another pebble. He slices it through the air, watches it skip three times across the water. “They were my brothers,” he states quietly. “I thought nothing would break us.”
I understand what he’s saying. Or rather, not saying. That shared trauma can bond, but more often than not, it severs. The guilt. The pain. The need to move forward, the agony of letting go. Five guys went into the woods. One has never been seen again. And the other four . . . they are not who they used to be either. Life is like that.
“Do you still live relatively close?”
He nods. “Beaverton has quite a few major tech firms. Scotty, Neil, and I all work in that area. Josh went the manufacturing route, but his firm is just around the corner. Getting to be you can’t throw a rock without hitting an enginerd in that town.”
“But no catching up at bars after work, weekly game of hoops, periodic college reunions?”
“We tried, after we came back. But . . . it didn’t feel the same anymore. No one knew what to say. How to act. Do we sit around and talk about Tim? Do we pretend it never happened? We couldn’t figure it out. Josh broke first. Stopped coming around, returning calls. When Marty contacted us about a renewed search effort one year later, I was surprised Josh showed up. It was the first time any of us had seen him in months. He seemed distant, but who were we to tell him how to cope? He continued to withdraw after that, though. I heard rumors of a DUI. That he was having difficulty at work. I thought of picking up the phone, but I just couldn’t do it. Two days ago was the first time I’d seen him since last year. Just looking at him . . . Goddammit. We fucking failed him. Again.”
He throws another rock into the water, then a second, third, fourth, in rapid succession. No fancy skipping, just unfocused rage.
“We’re all here because Marty owns our asses and he knows it,” Miguel says at last. “But even assuming we stumble upon Tim’s body tomorrow . . . will that actually change anything? Will Josh stop drinking? Will Martin finally hate us less than we hate ourselves?”
He glances at me but I don’t answer because I already know it’s not my words he needs. This kind of search is distinctly personal. For some, finding answers does bring closure. For others, finally knowing what happened to their loved one only makes their nightmares that much more specific.
Miggy returns to staring at the rippling lake. “I was scared that night,” he states abruptly.
“Because Scott had already disappeared?”
“Because . . . because of the screams and that noise and . . .” He shakes his head.