I can’t buy it; I can’t reject it. Did I hike too much yesterday or not sleep enough last night? Because my instincts are failing me. My ability to quickly size up people is one of my few life skills. But now my thoughts are clouded, my brain spinning.
I scrub at my temples, willing some semblance of plausible narrative to gel in my head. I got nothing. I’m heading deeper and deeper into the wilderness, beyond all contact with the outside world, and I have no idea who these people truly are, and what their real intentions might be.
I feel vulnerable in a way I haven’t felt in a very long time.
“Do you know what it takes to spend your life looking for Bigfoot?” Bob speaks up abruptly.
I look at him.
“Faith. It takes huge bucketloads of faith. I have no idea what happened last night, how Scott got injured or our food stash destroyed. But I’m not the problem here.”
I smile. I want to believe him, if only so I can sleep better at night. But what I notice most in his little speech is that he doesn’t mention the check Marty wrote to him. Yet more proof that payment did happen and Bob is hiding it.
Why?
Eight people head into the woods. A grieving father, a hiking guide, three college friends, and three semiprofessional searchers. On the surface, it makes sense. So why do I have a feeling eight of us won’t be coming back out?
A disturbance up ahead. Neil appears, the person I’m hoping to speak with next.
“Are you two okay?” he calls out.
“Just adjusting our packs,” Bob answers. Covering for us and our conversation. He doesn’t look at me; I don’t look at him.
“Then hurry up. We’ve found something. Straight ahead.”
CHAPTER 15
The group has discovered a makeshift campsite about twenty feet off the main trail. Martin spotted it first—though, how, I have no idea. It’s a crude setup: a barely body-sized lean-to fashioned from hand-cut pine branches. A few feet from its narrow opening are the charred remains of an old campfire.
“Placing the fire at the opening captures the heat,” Martin murmurs to no one in particular. “It may not look like much, but a shelter like this can maintain a temperature above fifty degrees, regardless of conditions. I taught him this. For a while, he’d practice them in the backyard, teach his friends on the school grounds. Kids love building forts.”
There’s a tone to his voice. A man who is seeing both the present and the past. A father who is feeling both proud and gutted.
The site is too small for eight people, so the rest of us stand back, letting Martin walk the area.
“You think Tim made this?” I ask Nemeth in a low voice.
He doesn’t answer right away, his gaze scouring the surrounding area. “It’s possible,” he allows at last. “Could be five years old, could be from earlier this summer, though.” He frowns, stares at the shelter, frowns again. “I doubt that. I’m thinking it’s at least a year old. How much beyond that, I can’t tell.”
“Why at least a year old?”
Martin is now walking around the lean-to. He pauses occasionally, touching the dense covering of pine needles, the sliced ends of the gathered tree limbs. Nemeth is looking at the scene, but Martin is feeling it.
“The ground, for one thing. Notice the light covering of detritus. Whoever built this would’ve disturbed the entire area. We’d see churned-up earth, impressions from a person sitting before the fire. We don’t. It looks . . .”
“Ghost towny?” I fill in. “Not just abandoned, but in a long-gone sort of way?”
“Exactly.” Nemeth squats down, regards our surroundings from this new vantage point. “Then again, five years later, I’d expect more of the shelter to have collapsed, branches to be knocked down. This is in pretty good shape for a ramshackle construction.”
“I thought you mountain-guru types were supposed to be able to sniff the dirt, lick a pine cone, then state unequivocally who came here at what date and time, not to mention their favorite food and astrological sign.”
Nemeth stares at me. “I know you’re a Virgo; does that help?”
“How do you know that?”
“Cuz you’re a pain in my ass. Stubborn, critical, overthinking—”
“Okay, okay, okay, let’s call it a draw.”
Martin has moved from the lean-to to the fire. He picks up a piece of charred wood, turns it over in his hand.
Luciana and Daisy, I notice, are now walking a larger circle around the campsite—as best they can, given that we’re in the middle of a clump of straggly, half-dead pines. Bob trails behind them. Neil, Scott, and Miguel are standing to the side, doing what they do best, which is nothing at all.