One Step Too Far(Frankie Elkin #2)(39)

“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.

“Why build it so far off the trail?” I ask.

“Generally, you look for some kind of natural starting point. Say, a few collapsed trees that already form a frame for the structure, that kind of thing. But to leave the trail and walk this far in . . .” Nemeth glances behind us, where the hiking path is barely visible through the fence of matchstick tree trunks. His expression is troubled. “I don’t know,” he says at last.

I think of the screams we heard yesterday when hiking up. The cries Nemeth said came from an animal but didn’t sound like any kind of cute, four-legged creature that I know. I wonder if the person who sheltered here heard those shrieks as well and felt a need for a less conspicuous shelter.

Nemeth rises to standing, dusting off his pants. He directs his next comment to the group: “While Devil’s Canyon is hard to access for your average hiker, a fair number of people still pass through here during any given season. Best bet is to see if we can find some trace of Tim’s gear or remnant of the person who stayed here. Otherwise, all we got is evidence of a single person who camped here at some point at least a year ago.”

Martin speaks up. “It’s his.”

We all look at him.

“The tree branches forming the lean-to. They haven’t been just hacked down. Their tips are cut at a precise forty-five-degree angle, as one might expect from an engineer. Then there’s the way the stones are arranged around the fire pit. They’re all similar in size and shape. No need for that. Requires extra effort. But Tim liked things uniform, balanced to the eye. Son of a carpenter, you know.”

I don’t know, but the more I learn of Tim, the more I wish that I’d had a chance to meet him. My life is filled with ghosts. Images and stories of people I never knew and, in most cases, never will. They haunt me. And yet I keep coming back for more, collecting memories that aren’t even my memories and clutching them tight to my chest. If you hoard other people’s tragedies, does that make your own easier to bear?

I’m still waiting to find out.

“We could search from here.” Luciana speaks up softly. She and Daisy are standing at attention twenty feet away, Luciana holding a small bladder in her hand. I’ve seen it used by trackers before, puffing the orange powder in the air and watching how it drifts to determine the direction of the wind.