“Me?” Todd responded, lifting his head, absently touching his cap.

“Yeah, you. What’s your story? What are you doing with these people?”

Todd drew himself up straight, looked at him warily. “They’re my friends.”

“I guess you’re some kind of colored-people lover, huh?”

“I guess I am.”

They glared at each other and Gwen thought for a moment that A.J. might shoot. But then he laughed, a burst of sound that was more like a curse. “I thought so,” he said. “Fucking traitor.” He shook his head in disbelief, then spat on the ground. “All right, then. All of you. Let’s get down to that garden. I want you to show me where those fuckers were camped.” They all stared at him until he lifted the gun again. “Come on, now. Let’s get moving down this slope.”

And so they reversed their course of earlier. Oscar stepped off the ledge and headed down first, followed by Gwen, Tracy, and Todd. Tracy was looking all around, as if trying to find a path of escape.

“Don’t you try to run off now,” A.J. warned, but it wasn’t possible, because just getting down the hillside with its unstable steep dirt and loose rocks, its slippery pine needles, took all of their concentration—and because this man, unlike José, seemed perfectly comfortable moving around in the wilderness with a gun in his hand.

Gwen glanced back a couple of times and saw him stepping confidently down the slope, sideways and balanced, as if he’d been making his way down wooded slopes his whole life. The dog ran ahead of them, her spotted white body flashing between the trees, her long, fringed tail acting like a balancing force. As they entered tree cover again, Gwen felt claustrophobic, worse because the light was now failing. There were trees, trees everywhere, some that had fallen into each other, dead branches and living ones reaching out and entangling her, making her feel like she would never get loose. Within a few minutes they’d reached the spot with the horrible smell. The dog ran off to the right and sniffed at something crumpled and brown.

“Timber, leave it!” A.J. commanded, but she lowered her shoulder and then flipped onto her back, rolling with joy and abandon.

“Damnit, you nasty-ass dog!” A.J. yelled. He stepped over, never taking his eyes off Gwen and the others, kicked the animal hard in the side, and yanked her up by the collar. Her shoulders and back were covered with a sticky brown substance; on the ground the source of it was unrecognizable.

“Fucking dead deer. Probably died from the rat poison.” A.J. shoved the dog along with his foot, not saying another word until they reached the edge of the grow. When he saw it, he let out a low whistle. “Nice crop,” he said, admiringly. “Bastards.”

He plucked a single leaf off a plant and held it to his nose, then shook his head. “If these were a little further along, we’d think about taking them.” He threw the leaf down. “We need to put these fuckers out of business.”

He directed them down the trail until they reached the campsite, and when he saw this, the color came up in his cheeks; it was as if he’d found that someone had not only broken into his house but had taken up residence there. He gripped his rifle so hard that his knuckles grew white. “Motherfuckers,” he said. Then he turned to the others and pointed his rifle. “Stay there.”

He went to José’s duffel bags and pulled out the contents—clothes, shoes, an extra blanket, and a one-eyed teddy bear. God, José was just a child, Gwen thought again. A scared kid who didn’t want to be here. A.J. opened up the bins and searched through them, pulling out boxes of crackers and cans of soup. The dog, who now smelled awful, rushed over to stick her nose in an open bin; A.J. threw a plastic food container that hit her squarely on the back and sent her slinking off again. Then he went over to the stove, which Gwen thought now might not even be for cooking, but for something related to the plants. A.J. looked at all of this, then turned the table heavily on its side. He picked up a shovel and started to beat the stove with it, striking it over and over again. He did this one-armed, swung the shovel like an ax, still holding the rifle in his other hand. He seemed to be doing this more to express his anger than to destroy the equipment, since he couldn’t do much damage one-handed. The sound of metal on metal made Gwen wince.

“I can’t believe the balls of these people! Right under our fucking noses. Right in our national forest!”

Had Gwen not been in the situation she was in, she would have found this amusing, a drug grower and Confederate sympathizer and God knew what else, sounding like a ranger for the National Park Service.

Now he took the shovel and started smashing up the rest of the camp—bins, the tarp and tent, the cooking equipment. He swore with each impact, cursing the Mexicans, the dead boy on the ledge above them, pausing only to pocket a bar of soap he found in one of the bins and to pick up his glasses, which had fallen off during a particularly violent swing.

In the midst of this Gwen heard Tracy say, “We’ve got to do something. He’s going to kill us.”

“I don’t know,” Todd replied. “Maybe we can reason with him.”

Gwen had had enough of this. “Todd,” she said, using the tone she’d use with an unreasonable teenager, “Tracy’s right. He’s going to kill us. And he can’t let us go after what we’ve seen and heard.”

“We’ve got to move quick,” Oscar added. “His brother’s coming.”

“Hey!” A.J. yelled. “You be quiet over there. No talking, no plotting, no crying for Mommy. Just shut up and do what I say.” He dropped the shovel and came back over to them. “Come to think of it, we need to get rid of your stuff too. Let’s start with your maps and compass. And your GPS.”

Tracy glared at him, but when he lifted the gun, she produced the maps and compass. He gestured for her to drop the plastic compass and then smashed it with his foot. He did the same with Oscar’s GPS. Then he pulled a lighter out of his pocket and lit the corner of the topo map, which blackened and curled and then vanished into nothingness. He repeated this process with the map of the Lost Canyon trail; the part that didn’t burn was a soggy mush. He then made them empty their pockets, which produced a knife out of Oscar’s front pocket and a Leatherman out of Todd’s.

A.J. approached them and patted them all down. Gwen endured the rough feel of his hand on her body, touching her at the hips and stomach, giving her ass a squeeze for good measure. “You’re a pretty one, for a darky,” he said. “And not too skinny either.” She felt dirty and invaded and terrified, and curled into herself when he was done.

Something blared loudly, an alarm or a phone, and it took Gwen a moment to realize that it couldn’t have been José’s. A.J. reached into his backpack and pulled out a satellite phone. “Iridium,” he said. “Best choice for the backcountry.” He took a few steps away from them but kept his rifle against his hip. “Gary!” he said cheerfully. “We were just talking about you!”

He listened to the reply.

“Yes, all four of them. The Mexican kid’s gone off to a better place. But we’re still here, and we’re about to go pick some plants.” He listened again and said, “All right. I’ll keep everyone entertained until then.”

He hung up and clipped the phone to his belt. “That was Gary, my brother. He says hi, and he looks forward to joining the party. But work before play, right? So let’s go tear up some plants before it gets too dark.”

Was he serious? Tear up plants on a day when they’d hiked seven or eight miles with heavy packs, crossed a fast-moving river, run into one scary guy with a gun only to end up in the hands of another? Gwen was tired, bone tired, and she was hungry. And on top of that her bladder was full.

“I have to pee,” she said aloud.

“So . . . pee!” said A.J.

“I’ll just go off over there.” She gestured toward the woods.