The Middle of Somewhere(94)

Dante consulted the map. “I’m guessing in another half hour they’ll be at the junction.”

“Sounds about right.”

He proposed that, instead of sitting there freezing, they could start the ascent and hike slowly, leaving the same distance between themselves and the putative Roots. Liz agreed, and twenty minutes later they were on the trail.

She led the way and focused on her surroundings to quell her anxiety over a potential encounter with the Root brothers. She noticed the granite here was lighter than elsewhere and studded with pink rectangles of feldspar crystals. The terrain was austere and only a few low, stoic plants squeezed life from between the rocks.

The sun caught the tip of Mount Hitchcock, painting it orange. Liz and Dante climbed, the sun climbing with them. The shadow of Whitney slid down Hitchcock until the entire mountain was aglow, the changing pattern reflected in the lakes at its feet. How Guitar Lake had earned its name hadn’t been clear when they skirted its shore during yesterday’s downpour, but now it was obvious—as obvious as the increasing cloud cover. What had been an innocuous band of white over the Great Divide was now a mass of tall, cumulus formations. In the last ten minutes, several small puffs had materialized over Mount Hitchcock. She wasn’t worried, though. It wasn’t even ten.

They stopped to remove a layer of clothing and drink water. They could still see their breath in the frosty air, but the effort of the climb had warmed them.

A low buzz came from the valley. Liz tried to pinpoint it, but failed.

“There.” Dante pointed beyond Guitar Lake. “A helicopter.”

Liz spotted it, flying low. It banked above the lake and flew southwest toward Crabtree Meadow. The buzz faded and the helicopter disappeared. “I wonder what that’s about? They use them for supplying ranger stations, but why would one be up here? Because of Brensen?”

He shrugged. “I thought they would have picked him up a couple days ago.” He looked across to Hitchcock, judging their elevation relative to the peak. “Shouldn’t be much farther, right?”

“No, we’ve done most of it.”

The final approach to the Whitney Trail junction was a long traverse. Liz felt sure they should be able to see hikers above them heading toward the summit, or returning from it, but there was only talus. She could make out sections of the trail now and all of it was empty. A knot formed in her stomach. Dante was leading and she asked him to stop, then traced with her trekking pole where she believed the Whitney Trail led. Frowning, he searched the slope and shook his head. Not a soul.

The air was noticeably thinner and they took small deliberate steps. Ahead and to the left was a tall spire with a trail cut into its side. To the right the trail disappeared around a corner. Liz saw a sign. The junction. Where all the packs should be. She sped up, her heart beating in her ears. Dante was right behind her.

They were a dozen yards away. The knot in her stomach tightened. Where were the packs? Sixty through-hikers and not one on the summit trail right now? Divide it in half—it was late in the season—and still someone would be going to Whitney midmorning. And what about the day hikers? A quota of a hundred and no one in sight.

She reached the junction, an open area of broken shale fifteen feet across, bordered by the spire on one side and a shoulder-high slab on the other. Beyond the slab was a two-thousand-foot sheer drop. Liz halted in the middle of the junction. Dante came up next to her, his mouth tight. “No packs? Why aren’t there any packs?”

“I don’t know.” She looked past him along the Whitney Trail, which wound around rock formations and towering pinnacles of granite. She could see only pieces of it, but every strip was empty. “There’s no one here.” She swallowed, her mouth parched. She stared at Dante. “Why is no one here?”

“Let’s rest a moment and think it through.”

Liz unclasped her hip belt and a shadow passed over her. Startled, she jerked her head up. A cloud. She lowered her pack and stood it against the wall next to Dante’s. A stiff breeze funneled up from the valley. They dug out their jackets and put them on, then crossed to the slab and found places to sit. Dante scanned the slope they’d ascended. “No one coming up behind us.”

Liz’s attention was on the sky. The clouds above the Kaweahs and the surrounding peaks to the west had formed a solid shroud, slate-colored at the bottom. Mount Hitchcock, too, was almost entirely in shadow, the lakes below iron gray. She twisted to see the sky above them. A few innocent puffs.