Something Wilder(50)

Nicole stood, her lips stretched in a smug smile. “I’m gonna pack up my tent and wake the others.”

Leo took care of the clothes, and Lily handed him a mug of strong coffee.

“Can we talk about yesterday?” he asked.

“I’d rather not.”

He took a sip and stared down into the dark liquid. “Okay. Sure.”

But she knew it wasn’t okay. She’d pulled him back. She’d kissed him.

“I need you to not…” She trailed off. Look at me like that. She blinked over to the fire, searching for the words there. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think you’re sorry you did it.” She looked up at him, surprised. “And I’m not sorry you did it. If you did it again, I wouldn’t stop you.”

“I won’t,” she told him firmly. “We’re not teenagers anymore, Leo.”

“I wasn’t a teenager when I worked at the ranch.” He smiled but held up his hands when she set her jaw and glared at him. “Okay. I’m done.”

With a wild flame of golden waves atop his head, Bradley walked over, still yawning. “Jesus. That was some storm last night.” He poured himself a mug of coffee, oblivious to the tension hovering over the small campfire. “Thought we’d get washed right out of here.”

“Nah.” She waved this off. “That was nothing.”

Walter joined them, too, scruffy and shuffling sleepily over. He looked like he belonged out here. The rugged look worked. Lily poured him a coffee while he found a place to sit.

“What about when we go down today?” Bradley asked. “Can we expect more rain?”

“I didn’t even know it rained in the desert,” Walter said.

“We get about ten inches a year,” Lily told them. “Mostly in the spring.” She looked up to where the sky had gone from sherbet-hued to bright blue. The air felt calm. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. “The ten-day forecast had about a thirty percent chance for showers yesterday, but normally we’d be pretty high up, so I wasn’t worried. Should be clear the rest of the way, though.”

“Just slick as shit, so be careful,” Nicole added.

“Can I ask what might be a dumb question?” Leo asked, staring down as he flipped a short stick along the backs of his fingers.

“Shoot,” Nicole answered.

“Now that we have this photograph and we have an idea of where we’re headed, what exactly are we expecting?” He looked up, squinting at Nic and then at Lily in the weak morning sun. “Once we get down there, let’s say we find the cabin. Hopefully we find the stump. Do we think that’s where Duke hid everything?”

“It’s possible, but I’m guessing not.” Lily winced. “You remember how my dad lived for puzzles and games? Well, if a code or riddle near the stump doesn’t tell us where to go to find the money, hopefully it will at least tell us our next step. I bet you my left arm that if this treasure hunt is real, he left ciphers all over the place.”

If it’s easy, Duke whispered in her memory, then it isn’t worth it.

Bradley leaned in. “But where are we now relative to where we’re going today?”

She pulled out her big map and pointed to where she’d marked a giant square. “This is where we are now.” She dragged a finger several inches over. “And this is Jasper Canyon. We’re headed there.”

“It all looks very… wavy,” Walter said through a grimace.

“Yeah. Those are elevation lines. We’re going down to river level.” They’d all seen the river in the distance; they knew how far they still had to go. “We’ll have to leave the Jeep soon and go on foot. It’s not going to be easy.”

The guys looked at each other, and Lily looked at Nicole. It was going to be a rough couple of days.

Bradley was the first to break the silence. “Then we’d better get started,” he said. “Let’s eat and get out of here.”

There wasn’t much variety—instant oatmeal, nuts, and berries—but they savored the last of their fresh food, knowing their next meals would have to be light, nonperishable, and heavy on the protein. Nobody mentioned Lily’s and Leo’s clothes—mostly dry now in the heat of the fire—but they hung there like guilty shadows.

They took down the tents and loaded everything into the Jeep, driving a few slow hours on the increasingly bumpy and treacherous road before deciding that it was time to take the rest on foot.

They checked their packs and determined what they absolutely needed to have. No way was Lily leaving the gun in the Jeep, so along with Duke’s notebook, she zipped it, her satellite phone, and Terry’s phones into a gallon-size plastic bag.

Leo put his hand on Terry’s phone in the bag. “Should we take those? Will it look bad?”

“Nah. I grew up with every ranger in the county. They’re good guys but it’s not FBI headquarters down here.”

Those who needed to switched out their shoes, and they each packed a change of clothes, and enough energy bars, beef jerky, water, and C rations to last a couple of days. Nic took the first aid kit and everyone had their sleeping bag and tent strapped into their hiking pack, but—

“Keep it as light as possible,” she reminded them. “I know you want to take everything, Bradley, but I promise you won’t need cashmere down in the Maze.”