Behind her Tracy stirred. Gwen shook Oscar by the shoulder, and then Todd. The dog trailed after her, licking everyone’s faces, pawing at arms and shoulders.
Oscar and Todd sat up groggily; Tracy was already on her feet.
“Jesus Christ!” Todd exclaimed. “What happened? How’d we sleep so long?”
Oscar was fiddling with his watch. “I think I set the alarm wrong. I set it for eleven p.m., not a.m.”
Todd’s face flushed. He got to his feet and took a few pacing steps. “Goddamnit, Oscar.”
Gwen was angry too. How could he have? How could he have messed up such an obvious thing?
“I’m sorry, you guys,” Oscar said. “I fucked up.”
“You fucked up, all right,” said Todd, whirling around. “We lost two hours. We gave them two more hours to catch up with us, and now . . .” He looked at his watch. “Now we’re smack in the middle of the day, when anyone can see us.”
Oscar fiddled with the zippers of his pack and didn’t reply.
“Look, there’s no use making a stink about it,” Tracy said calmly. She had her pack on already. “All we can do is just go, all right?”
“I’m really sorry, guys,” Oscar said again. Then absently, “I can’t find my damned Clif Bar.”
“I’m missing mine too,” said Tracy. “One of you hungry people steal it while I was sleeping?”
“No,” Gwen said. And then she saw two torn-up wrappers just outside their circle, with several visible tooth marks.
As if on cue, Timber came over and licked her. This time Gwen noticed the hint of peanut butter on her breath.
“The friggin’ dog went right into my pack and took it,” Tracy said.
“Goddamn,” Oscar said.
“A.J. did say she was a scavenger,” Todd remarked.
“I know, but shit, that was the only one I had.”
“It’s all right,” Gwen said. “You can have some of my stuff.”
“Plus, we’ll be out of here soon,” Tracy added.
Gwen hoped so, because despite her offer to Oscar, she was worried about their lack of food. Already she’d felt light-headed and wobbly-legged—and it looked like the hardest part of their hike was yet to come. But she couldn’t worry about that right now.
Within five minutes they were hiking again. They didn’t speak; they were sober and scared. And yet Gwen, despite her stiffness and to her surprise, was actually feeling better. She’d needed the sleep, and she felt replenished. The Moleskin made the pain in her feet bearable, and her knee was holding up. Her body had grown accustomed to hiking; it moved more easily through space and discomfort. And while she wished they had more food, she couldn’t really begrudge the dog for raiding their supply; she’d been glad when Timber had caught up with them on the trail. She liked having something sweet and alive to keep her company. The dog’s energy and joy were helping push her along.
In another ten minutes they’d reached the edge of the woods and they stepped into the open again. They were near the end of the valley, at the foot of the range they’d first seen yesterday, with a steep, exposed climb ahead. And yet Gwen felt good, almost exhilarated, that they had gotten this far. The climb would be a challenge, she knew—and it was hotter today, and the altitude was making it hard to breathe. But it was the final challenge. Once they reached the pass, it was just a long walk down to the Owens Valley. They wouldn’t be back in civilization, not quite yet. But they’d be able to see it was there.
“I think we go up along the right,” Tracy said, and they all looked to where she was pointing. It did seem to be less steep in that direction, and it was possible to imagine a route.
“Where’s the pass, though?” Todd asked. This close to the range, they could no longer take in the whole of it. The gaps that had seemed so obvious from farther back were now obscured.
“To the left of us, the one you saw before. I think it’s beyond that little peak there, right past that darker outcropping.” Tracy pointed. “I noticed it while we were at the lake. I was looking for a landmark we could see from here.”
Todd nodded. “So we bear right, and then cut back to the left.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“That looks like a lot of loose rock,” Oscar said. “Are you sure we can make it up that way without sliding?”
No one answered for a moment, and Gwen realized that Todd and Tracy were so irritated with him that they were ignoring him altogether. But now Tracy turned to him, with a show of patience. “No, I’m not. But I am sure that if we go up more directly, we’ll run into vertical rock. So I’ll take my chances.”
They began to hike—Tracy first, Oscar behind her, followed by Gwen, with Todd bringing up the rear. They walked over hard-packed earth, granite, and pockets of mossy growth, sometimes pulling themselves up on slabs of rock that were too big to gain in one step. There were two, three tiny streams of snow melt trickling down. The peaks were offering water from their snowcaps to the lower elevations, feeding the rivers and lakes. In some of the green pockets a few wildflowers grew, hearty clusters of maroon, clumps of purple and blue, the orange and yellow candy-looking plant she’d seen two days before, that Todd had identified as columbine. There were rock shelves with bursts of bright pink flowers growing out of every crag. But she couldn’t really enjoy this beauty, could only acknowledge it distantly; she was becoming too aware of the opposite ridge and the valley behind them and the chance that someone was there. When she looked back, though, she saw nothing, just empty sloping land, starting to darken in shadow as the sun moved west.
She had no idea how long they hiked, so skewed was her sense of time. Then the last of the ground cover gave way and they were in a higher, open landscape—rock and scree, just as Oscar had noticed. The slope was dotted with windblown trees, cinnamon-barked and sturdy, swirled into shapes that made them look alive, like trees from a fairy tale. But even these would disappear as they moved farther up. The top of the range was a monolith of brown and gray, stark and barren as the moon. They could make out the jagged tops of the peaks here, and they looked sharp enough to cut.
It was getting harder to hike, harder to cope with the heat, harder to put her feet down without them sliding out from under her. She chose larger rocks that looked more stable but each step was an effort; she felt her calves and thighs begin to quiver. Two, three times she slipped and used her poles to catch herself. Once something scurried between the rocks—a furry brown animal the size of a terrier. Gwen gasped.
“Marmot,” Todd explained. “Nothing to worry about.”
“We’ve been going an hour,” Tracy called over her shoulder. “And we’re making good progress. I think we can reach the pass before dark.”
No one answered, and Gwen realized that the others, like her, were struggling just to breathe. They weren’t on any trail here; they were picking their way up through steep, uneven rock. They must have been at an elevation of ten or eleven thousand feet by now—Gwen breathed fast and hard but she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs. She wondered if the others felt the same. They kept trudging, climbing, sweat streaming down their bodies as they labored upward in the afternoon sun. Blisters had started to form on her hands from the friction of the poles. The reflection of the light off the granite was so intense that she couldn’t look at the peaks directly, not even with her sunglasses on.
A cloud moved over and they were suddenly in shadow. The sun emerged again, and then another cloud, followed by a gust of wind.
“That feels good,” Gwen said aloud.
“Yes, finally,” Todd said. “Some shade.”
Then they heard a rumble of thunder.
“Uh-oh,” said Oscar, and they all stopped to look. Dark clouds were coming in over the peaks. They were approaching fast. In another few minutes the bottoms of the clouds were visible, perfectly flat and very dark. There was a sudden flash, as if a lightbulb had been lit inside a cloud. No sound for several seconds. And then it came—a deep rumble that started on the other side of the mountains and came toward them like a giant, charging beast. In front of them, the dog lifted her head and gave a mute bark. The hair on her scruff stood up straight.