The Last to Vanish(77)

In all the versions and rumors I heard, there was never mention of anyone else. Never any mention of who they’d interacted with before setting out.

“It was just luck, that I was there.” And I thought of how much all of our lives came down to luck. “I was heading down to the tavern after work, for a drink.” Her eyes drifted to the side, and I wondered if she was meeting up with Sheriff Stamer, a young deputy then, while her husband was out of town. I wondered how much of Rochelle’s implication was true.

“And there was this group of boys out front, they were just boys, and they asked me to take a picture.” Her eyes drifted shut. “Yes, I took that picture for them. They set their packs on the bench, and I took the shot, and then they were arguing, and somehow the camera must’ve gotten left there, on that bench, when they picked up their packs again.”

“They were arguing?” Had people from the tavern seen them, out the window? Or were they too far down the road, out of sight?

“Yes, about whether they should start. They said they were heading toward the Appalachian, and I told them, You won’t make it, it’s too late. Apparently, everyone told them that. But Brian, the one with that hat, he was adamant. He was the athletic one. Said he didn’t come all this way to waste a day in some shitty little town. Like I wasn’t even there.” I had heard that everyone told them not to do it, down at the tavern. The thing I had never heard was Celeste.

“The others were right. It was obvious to anyone who looked at them. Their gear, they were amateurs. They’d had a round of drinks, maybe more. They had no business setting out into the dark. They reached some sort of compromise as they were arguing, that they’d go if they could find a guide. They asked me if I knew anyone. And for some reason I just said, I can do it.” A pause. “I think about that often.”

“Why? Why would you say that?” I brought my arms up on top of the table, leaning forward.

“I was worried. Look, they weren’t going to make it all the way. We all knew this. But I thought, I could get them somewhere good, safe, convince them to set up camp. I thought I could keep them from getting hurt. You have to understand, Abigail. I thought I could help.”

I could imagine it so clearly, a young Celeste, unable not to help, as she had once done for me.

“It wasn’t long after we started that I realized this wasn’t just a camping trip.”

She put up a hand as she saw my expression, the question she knew was coming. “It was,” she said, “and also, it wasn’t. Something must’ve happened on their last trip. I didn’t know them, so it was hard to put my finger on it then. I could only read between the lines of the conversations. It seemed that Brian hadn’t been doing well, over the year. Since college, really. Getting more reckless, with the drugs, with his activities. Jerome, the one from DC, he hiked up with me for part of it, filled me in a little while the others trailed behind. Brian had been a serious athlete, went to college for baseball even, but nothing came of that. There was a hole to fill. An adrenaline void. I think the trip was really a push to get him help. Sort of like an intervention.”

“An intervention?” Of all the things she could’ve said, that was one I hadn’t imagined.

“Yeah, came as quite the surprise to Brian, too. I don’t know the details, but the others started broaching it slowly as we hiked. But they hadn’t planned it, not really. Not well. It became my understanding that, whatever had happened the year before, most of them had decided not to go away again that summer. Brian kept bringing it up, like he’d won an argument, saying, See, I knew you guys couldn’t stay away. I knew you’d come around. I think the hike was Toby’s idea, though. He seemed closest to Brian, mentioned getting together with Brian the month before, when he was passing through Chicago. I think Toby had reached out to the others after he saw how bad things truly were, and they threw the trip together impulsively to get him alone, away from anything else. To help him.”

It explained how, afterward, no one could be sure who had planned it, only that it wasn’t Brian this time. That Jerome had bought his tickets last minute, and Neil had told his boss it was a family emergency. Because it was, in a way. They were a found family, even for all their differences. Four people who had stuck together through all of it—from middle school to adulthood. Who saw the changes each summer, Brian growing worse. He was in need, and they all came.

“We only made it to Shallow Falls,” she said. “We stopped to rest. It was too dark, I told them, to go any farther. The ravine was a killer, and there was some argument over that. Brian, again, wanted to press on. Whatever was waiting for him that night, it was like he could feel it. And he was trying to outrun it.”

I imagined them, at the open expanse at the base of the falls, at the center of a funneling. Celeste convincing them this was far enough, with the ravine ahead. I imagined the accident coming: A slip. A fall. The beginning of the end—

“Things really started escalating then,” she said, and her hands ran down her long braid. She wasn’t looking at me anymore—it was like she was there, twenty-five years earlier. “They kept saying to Brian that he wasn’t himself, that he wasn’t listening. That he was going to get them hurt, or worse. And then Toby, he was going through Brian’s bag, to see what he brought—drugs, I assumed. And Brian was telling him to stop, and then Toby—he pulled out a gun from somewhere inside Brian’s bag.” My head shot up. “And then he was yelling, Why do you have a gun? Why the hell did you bring a gun on a camping trip, Brian?”