“He’s right, Gwen,” Tracy said gently. “We need to keep going. Let’s do this next stretch and then we can stop to rest. Okay?”

Todd was anxious to get moving—not only out of fear, but also because, although he wouldn’t admit it, he knew exactly how Gwen felt. Now that he was sitting and had his shoes off, he couldn’t imagine getting up again. His muscles were all tightening up; his left knee had gotten sore. He felt the lure of sleep; it was like the pull of the abyss, deadly, irresistible. He fought this and said, “We can do this, Gwen. We can go a little farther.”

Gwen still did not speak. The dog, who’d been sitting beside her, gave her a sly kiss on the leg. “All right,” she said finally. “But just give me a minute to deal with my feet.” She quickly took off one shoe, revealing a swollen heel and big toe, cut and applied some Moleskin. She retied the shoe and stood back up. Todd put his socks and shoes on too.

“Good job, Gwen,” Tracy said. She stripped off her jacket and stuffed it into her pack. Then she walked off in the direction they’d been heading, and the others fell in behind her.

They marched on without talking. The ground was nearly level; they were moving through the bottom of the valley. A bright blue Steller’s jay shot through a cluster of trees, turning sideways and touching each trunk lightly with its feet, like a skier running a slalom course. They passed a tree with a giant mushroom growing out of its side, like a white, fleshy ear turned downward to hear messages from the ground. Then Todd stopped to point out a clump of coarse black hair, stuck on the side of a tree.

“Look,” he said. “A bear used this tree to scratch his back.”

Oscar squinted at the hair, and shivered. “Wow, he must have been a big one.”

“Is there any other kind?” Gwen said. “Let’s keep going.”

They kept walking, a bit faster, and then suddenly they were out of the woods. It was lighter now, almost seven a.m. The peaks on either side of them were lit orange and gold in the early-morning sun. They were flanked by huge boulder fields, amazingly white, like giant snowballs that had rolled downhill. Beyond them, at the end of the valley, massive spires and sharp pinnacles with sheets of snow draped between them extended thousands of feet into the sky. Todd’s heart lifted, despite everything. He’d never seen such grandeur. He looked again at the corridor between the turrets and pinnacles, which framed the valley all the way to its end. It was like strolling down an avenue lined with cathedrals. It was like walking into the arms of God.

Directly in front of them was a basin they had seen from the top. But what, from that vantage point, had looked like a small break in the trees now revealed itself to be a bigger open space. It was probably a mile across, maybe more—the land was uneven, patches of green and brown interspersed with slabs of granite. In the middle of it all was the lake. A small stream fed into it and then flowed out the other side. This in turn, Todd knew, would eventually lead to other water, one of the countless rivers that rose up in California and flowed all the way to the sea.

“Well, there’s our water,” he said.

“Yeah, good,” Gwen said. “But look at those mountains.”

Now Todd looked up ahead of them and saw why Gwen was worried. He’d been so focused on the beauty around him that he hadn’t thought about what awaited when they got to the valley’s end. From the ridge, the peaks to the east had looked formidable but distant. From here, he could see the full scope of them. The range they had to cross was massive, a jagged spine of sharp barren peaks, easily over 13,000 feet. But he was still overcome by a sense of awe, and a sudden understanding of the land. The western Sierra built gradually, with gentle foothills and lush valleys and hospitable forests. Now they were approaching the starker eastern Sierra, where one plate of the earth had pushed under another and thrust the mountains into the sky.

“How are we supposed to get over those?” Oscar asked, sounding disheartened.

“We can totally do it,” Tracy insisted.

Oscar looked uncertain, even angry. “I don’t know, Tracy. I think we’re in deep shit.”

“We can do it,” Todd agreed. He was examining the peaks closely. “There’s that shoulder I saw before, between the two peaks. It looks lower than the rest of the range.” He paused. “There’s a pass way to the right too, but that looks farther away. I’m thinking left. That’s probably our best bet.”

But from the valley floor this seemed very high, and terribly far away. Todd’s confidence snagged, began to falter—but he fought this and looked squarely at the others. “Let’s go,” he said. “We need to keep moving.”

He expected some protest from Tracy, but she said, “Sounds good. Let’s do it.” Then: “But I’m thinking you should ditch your jacket, Gwen.”

Gwen turned to her. “Why?” She looked down at her fleece, which was fuschia. “Oh.”

“Do you want mine?” Todd asked.

“No thanks. Hopefully my shirt will be enough.”

They stepped away from the cover of trees and out into the open, and Todd flinched involuntarily, expecting a shot. Nothing came. They picked their way over the soft springy earth, passing boulders as big as trucks. With each step they could see more of the slope they’d descended that morning; it was bathed in brilliant light. There was no movement, and Todd was relieved.

“It doesn’t look like anyone’s up there,” Gwen said, as if reading his mind.

They all paused and looked back. “You’re right,” Tracy said. “Well, let’s keep moving before someone is.”

They walked on, the dog darting in front of them, charging up boulders to survey the land, sprinting ahead of them and then coming back. Her nose took in all of the interesting scents; she scratched the ground gingerly and peed on whatever she found. Finally she ran ahead and kept on running, disappearing over a rise. When they gained it, they saw where she was: at the edge of the first lake they’d seen from above, looking back at them, as if to say, Here it is! She tried to announce it but again the weird muffled bark; her mouth moved but they heard no sound. Awful as her muteness was, Todd was glad for it now—a bark here could be heard for miles around.

They scrambled down a clump of boulders and onto the flat land around the shore. As they filled up their bottles, they realized they’d left their water purifier behind.

“We’ll need to boil the water,” Todd said.

“It’ll be fine,” Tracy countered. “It looks totally untouched back here. Besides, what do you think the explorers did back in the 1860s? Or the Indians? You think they all had filters or SteriPENs?”

“This isn’t 1860. There’s a lot more people in these mountains. Plus, there’s all the animals.”

“Okay, but do you really want to take the time to set up the stove?”

Todd saw the logic in this. No point in worrying about bacteria if they were going to get shot trying to boil it away. “You’re right,” he said, and drank from his bottle. The water was so refreshing it brought tears to his eyes. He drank an entire thirty-two-ounce bottle, refilled it, and this time sipped more slowly. It was warmer today, and humid. The air was thinner too, and he understood that his slight light-headedness was not only exhaustion, but lack of oxygen. He noticed how pretty the lake was, crystalline blue, with the huge peaks set behind it. If they were still on vacation, if they were here to relax, they would have stopped at a place like this, swam and rested and enjoyed a leisurely meal, stretched out on the rocks in the sun.

But within five minutes they were moving again, around the lake’s shore to the left. The sun was high enough now that it was glinting off the water. Something broke the surface and gained the air, splashing down again: a fish. How good it would be to catch it and cook it, he thought. His stomach rumbled with hunger.