Something Wilder(27)
Nicole—already working on breakfast—watched with amusement as they attempted to sit gracefully down on a slab of sandstone. “It gets easier, I promise.”
Walter looked betrayed. “You said that yesterday.”
Leo glanced up in time to see Lily approaching with a pair of saddle blankets in her arms, and just like the past couple of days, she avoided his eyes. Her hair was braided under her Stetson, her jeans already dusty. She’d probably done more before six o’clock than most people did all day, and just seeing her in the muted morning light made his heart do an aching nosedive.
“You might also want to take some ibuprofen,” Lily said. “We have a six-hour ride today.”
Walter exhaled a terrified “Six.”
Nicole appeared, handing him a steaming mug of coffee, and he accepted it with a stiff bow. She gave the second mug to Leo before heading back to the table. It felt suddenly ridiculous that life could move on like this. A few days ago, he’d been in his safe but boring life, sitting in meetings or answering emails for nine hours a day; today he felt like he’d been yanked up and planted back on the earth upside down and inside out. In contrast, Lily moved around with more ease than before their talk, like they’d covered enough of their history to simply close the door and move on.
Leo wasn’t sure if he wanted the door closed. He still had so many questions about the intervening years, and part of him—admittedly a new, unsteady part—thought he might want the door blown open instead.
He wanted to finish their conversation. He wasn’t letting her evade him today.
His eyes lingered as she threw another piece of wood on the fire and carried a Dutch oven to where the flames had burned down to coals. When she straightened, she caught him staring, but he didn’t look away.
“What the fuck is this?” Nicole was holding a burnt cigarette butt. “Idiot tourists smoking out here.” She stomped over to the designated garbage bin. “Gonna set this whole goddamn canyon on fire.”
“Did anyone hear rustling last night?” Walt asked. “It sounded like someone walking around outside.”
“Probably just animals looking for supper,” Lily told him. “We’re the intruders here, camping on their dinner table.”
Walter’s cup wavered in his hand.
A tent flap opened, and Bradley emerged. He stretched in the rising sun, a little scruffier than when they’d arrived, but definitely more bright-eyed than any of the rest of them.
“God damn, I slept good.” When he lifted his shirt to scratch his stomach, Leo noticed the way Nicole and Lily paused to watch and felt a hot swell of irritation in his gut. Bradley walked toward one of the larger sandstone ledges, propping a boot on the lip of a steep crevice, fists to hips as he surveyed the vista. “I feel alive out here. My heart is racing, my blood pumping.”
Terry joined them a few minutes later, looking only marginally better than Leo felt. “I have a few suggestions for routes today,” he said, picking up an apple.
“We’ve got it taken care of, Terry,” Lily told him, ignoring his disappointment. “Get your tents packed and ready to go after breakfast. It’s gonna be a long day.”
* * *
She hadn’t been kidding. The heat of the day had sapped the riders of any remaining enthusiasm by the time they finally reached camp. Ace’s shadow stretched long across the ground, distorted by pi?on pine and scraggly patches of juniper that thrived there in the arid soil.
They secured the horses, then all gathered a safe distance from the edge of the mesa overlooking the vast canyon below.
“Jesus Christ, that’s far down,” Bradley said, attempting to see over the sheer drop-off. He lifted a hand to his forehead. “I’m dizzy just looking at it. Where are we again?”
“Maze Overlook. And careful,” Lily warned with an outstretched arm. “If you fall, you die.”
Obediently, Bradley stepped back.
Leo studied the section of canyon in the distance far below, with its intricate, serpentine formations. “It doesn’t look real.”
“It really doesn’t,” Lily agreed. “Can you believe that was all done by rainwater searching for the sea?”
“That makes me a little sad,” Walter said.
Leo had never wished he could fly, but he did just then. There was something about the canyon that made him want to explore, to swoop from the top of one red rock pillar to another and down into the literal maze of intersecting slots. It was both exquisite and sinister.
“We’re not going down there, are we?” Walt asked.
“No way,” Terry said. “You pussies wouldn’t last a day out there.”
Walter stared at him. “Have you done it?”
Terry held out his arms as if this should be obvious. “Dude.”
“Do you ever take people down there?” Leo asked Lily.
She reached into her pocket for her ever-present lip sunscreen, and it would take red-hot pokers to drag his eyes away while she applied it. “Sure, but only experienced hikers, and only certain areas. The backcountry is really remote. Some people go in by river or in high-clearance four-wheel drives, but roads only get you so far and you have to do the rest on foot.” She pressed her lips together, spreading the balm. Leo swallowed heavily, ripping his gaze away.