The Middle of Somewhere(93)

“I’m hiking in everything.”

They turned on their flashlights, dressed, stuffed the sleeping bags in their sacks and deflated the mattresses.

Dante climbed out. “Dios mio! It’s cold!”

Liz handed him their belongings, then joined him. Except for the flashlight beams, the darkness was complete. Only the shimmering stars betrayed where the mountains became sky.

They’d left their wet rain jackets outside and now shook the frost off and put them on. Dante prepared coffee while Liz took down the tent, snapping the frozen condensation off the fly and stopping frequently to blow her hands warm. The bear cans held only a little leftover food and Ziploc bags stuffed with trash, so she added an empty fuel can, the stove, dirty socks, cups and bowls and whatever else they wouldn’t need again.

As they finished stowing the gear and clothing in their packs, dawn arrived. With Whitney standing over them, however, the sun wouldn’t find their campsite until long after they’d gone. Liz squinted at the enormous wall they would climb. Somewhere on it was the trail. She strained to see moving dots—hikers—creeping along a switchback, but saw nothing except rocks of every imaginable size.

They hoisted their packs and grabbed their poles.

“Let’s go find the sun,” Dante said.

They picked their way down to the gulley and bore right toward the wall. They were halfway to the trail when Dante stopped short and pointed ahead and to the right. Two hikers, about a quarter-mile away, ascending the trail.

A wave of panic shot through Liz. “Shit.”

Dante turned to her, eyes wide, “Is it them?”

In the dim light, she couldn’t make out the color of the hikers’ backpacks, but the one in the front was tall. Her mouth went dry. “I don’t know,” she whispered, conscious of sounds carrying in the still of the morning. She’d felt secure in their campsite, tucked away. Now it was as if a searchlight had been trained on them. Instinctively, she crouched down, her heart thudding in her chest. One of her poles bounced off a rock. She winced at the sharp ringing sound and glanced up at the hikers. They hadn’t paused, but that didn’t mean she and Dante hadn’t been spotted.

Dante squatted beside her, his agitation reverberating in the space between them. He nodded to the right, where a tall boulder stood. “How about over there?”

“Okay.” She fought against the impulse to dash for cover. She rose slowly, the muscles in her legs thick with adrenaline, and moved across the gulley, holding her poles in one hand. Dante followed. They reached the boulder and slipped behind it. Liz leaned against the granite, resting one hand on the stone, rough and night-cold.

Next to the boulder was a five-foot-high ledge. They removed their packs and rested them against it.

Dante peered over the edge. “They’re still walking. Maybe they didn’t see us.”

“They might when they get higher.”

He shook his head in frustration. “I wish we knew if it was them.”

“We haven’t seen anyone else for two days.”

“Perhaps we should stay where we are.”

“We can’t hole up here, Dante. We don’t have the food. Plus, if that really was Payton and Rodell, they might wait us out. And they’re happy to eat marmots.” She thought of the one crucified on the trail sign. Her stomach turned.

“So what do we do? Let them get ahead, keep our distance?”

“That’s all we’ve got. Plus, there’ll be day hikers up there.” It was less of a logical statement than a prayer. She looked west across the valley through which they’d come. A strip of clouds hung over the peaks of the Great Divide. “We don’t want to be up at Trail Crest too late.”

Dante nodded. “Weather. So, long enough for them to get to the junction? Because they could be waiting partway up.”

“True. We need to give them time to get to the junction or over Trail Crest. They won’t want to be up there late, either, especially if they’re going to the summit.” She glanced at her watch. Quarter to seven. “We might be able to see them going up. But why don’t we figure on two hours?”

“Two hours it is.”

They broke out the cooking gear, made a second cup of coffee and ate breakfast. The coffee warmed them for a time, but soon they were stamping their feet and rubbing their arms. Periodically, one of them peered over the ledge to monitor the progress of the hikers, who crept steadily up the hulking west face of Whitney. About an hour after Liz and Dante had first spotted them, they vanished, too far away to see.