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Gravel crunched beneath the tires of the SUV. In the passenger’s seat, Siena looked up from her field journal as Emmett pulled into the empty trailhead lot.
Cam kicked the back of Siena’s seat. “Jesus, get me out of here. My legs are about to fall off.”
“Does she always complain this much?” asked Isaac.
“Yes,” Emmett and Siena said in unison as Emmett parked. Siena unbuckled and hopped out before they’d even come to a complete stop, shaking out her legs as she scoped the place out. A thick grove of drooping pines lined the dirt clearing, the ground beyond the lot coated with a layer of brown needles. Unremarkable, but it sure smelled amazing.
“Complain?” Cam flung open her door. “I have every right to complain.” She stood and rolled her neck, her short mop of ashy hair flopping to the side. “So do you, the way you were folded like a jackknife behind Emmett for four hours while he drove like a maniac.”
“She’s joking,” Siena reassured Isaac when she caught him frowning from the back seat. Emmett drove like a grandma, and not just on mountain roads. She used to get on his case on a weekly basis. Emmett caused accidents with his carefulness.
But he always failed to be careful about the right things.
Dust still hung in the air from their arrival, and Siena batted it away with a cough. That was the one thing about backpacking in California in July—everything was bone dry, the wilderness a tinderbox itching for a match. At least there would be no snow. She and crampons were sworn enemies.
Isaac stood, the top of the SUV reaching his shoulders. He stretched his lanky arms before adjusting his CalTech baseball hat. He was the kind of kid who made Siena feel old, a baby-faced grad student without a study to his name. Siena—well, Cam, really—had taken him on as a favor for a professor, given their team was so small. A decade ago, Siena had to work much harder for her opportunities. Isaac probably didn’t realize how lucky he was, but he would soon learn it.
“Can I help?” Isaac asked.
“You can help by hurrying up.” Siena joined Emmett at the back of the SUV as he popped the hatch. “We’re already working with a late start.”
Amongst the gear, Siena spotted her stained Kelty, a High Sierra Conservationists patch from her mother slapped over a hole in the front pocket. She yanked the bag free, lowering it to the ground with a grunt. Her bathroom scale had weighed it at fifty-five-point-seven pounds, including a collection of geomorphology equipment, her laptop, sixteen pounds of freeze-dried food (in case the mules were short or late), and not nearly enough underwear. The point of the six-week trip wasn’t to smell good, after all.
Cam dropped her bag next to Siena’s and bent to scratch her tanned leg. Cam was lean all over, the forest her second home for as long as Siena had known her. When she stood straight, she pushed her aviators up the bridge of her nose. “Do we really need to pull everything out for an equipment check?”
Siena finished braiding her dark hair and smacked an elastic around the end. “Yes. Of course.” It was Cam who’d introduced Siena to the thrill and utter anxiety of an impromptu backpacking trip, the ones slapped together day-of with all the finesse of a swamped deli clerk. And while those trips were the cornerstone of their friendship, this was different. They weren’t about to head into the wilderness just to smoke a bit of weed and talk shit about their colleagues.
Cam leaned against the bumper. “Doubt anything has magically disappeared since leaving town.”
“It’s protocol,” Siena countered with a sigh. “I swear, sometimes I do not know how you survive as a principal investigator.”
Cam grinned. “Procrastination and a can-do attitude, Doc. You should try it.”
Isaac sauntered toward them, smearing sunscreen on the back of his neck. “We didn’t do gear checks at all during my undergrad.”
“In all fairness, this isn’t a field trip to a rocks and minerals museum,” Siena said.
Isaac chuckled. “Got me there.”
As Siena bent over to lace her boots, she felt Emmett’s stare. She’d sensed his eyes on her since they left town, catching his glances through the reflection in the car window as he waited for a glimpse of her fragility. Waited for the first signs of a meltdown. She’d promised herself she’d keep him at arm’s length, which was why she avoided meeting his eyes in return. They were dark and infinite and made her want to touch his tawny skin the way she used to. Either that or punch him in the throat.
“Start unpacking,” said Emmett. “I’ve got the list.”
Cam groaned. “Fine, Dad.”
They unpacked their bags and ran over the checklist once more: pH strips, elemental analysis kits, a decent microscope, a half-decent theodolite, a less-than-decent Chittick apparatus, two laptops, field journals, extra pencils, and a sundry of extraction tools . . . everything they couldn’t trust the mule packer to deliver on time.
Siena slid her recorder and phone into the outer pocket of her bag before helping her team pack everything up again. Emmett locked the SUV and tucked the spare key above the rear tire. He lifted Siena’s bag onto the hitch, and Siena saddled into it, exerting far too much effort to stand up. The stark weight of her gear settled onto her hips, and she balanced herself with her trekking poles. At least she’d remembered to bring plenty of painkillers.
Emmett waved his hand toward the trail. “After you,” he told Siena.
“Always a prince, certainly never an asshole,” Cam muttered.
Emmett’s shoulders tensed, but he said nothing, his arm remaining outstretched. It was a gesture of submission. Emmett had forgone his PhD to study carbon capture at COtwo Industries. And Emmett was the reason COtwo had awarded funding for Siena’s proposal.
But Siena had helmed the fight for this study. She’d trodden the waters of bureaucratic hell, cutting years off her life from sleep deprivation alone to reopen interest in Alpenglow Glacier. And she’d put forth one hell of an argument convincing the administration to let her use the university’s decommissioned cabin as a base.
Cam kicked a pinecone, which bounced off Siena’s shin. “Come on, Doc. We’re on COtwo’s dime now,” she said, her voice darkly sarcastic.
Siena’s eyes flitted back to Emmett. “They should feel honored I even considered their money.”
Emmett looked away. At least he knew better than to retort. She would have found extra funding without COtwo. Emmett was lucky to be here.
Siena stepped forward, pressing two fingers to her lips and touching the Glass Lake Trailhead sign as she passed.This one’s for you, old man.
In her head, the old man responded.
Don’t go.
She ignored him and entered the forest. The others followed.
Crickets droned in the foliage, and a mountain chickadee whistled from the tree boughs. Siena scoured the trail and found no footprints amongst the powdery dirt and broken needles. No one had been this way since it last rained, which was odd—Deadswitch wasn’t well known by tourists and casuals, but it was a haven for nature geeks and people like her. There had to have been some activity this summer. She should’ve asked the ranger when they’d stopped to pick up their permit if they were likely to come across anyone.
“This isn’t too bad,” said Isaac, which prompted a laugh from the rest of them.
“We have a quarter mile or so more of this,” Emmett said. “Then the incline hits and won’t let up until we reach camp. Every day after, we’ll gain about one to two K in elevation until we reach the cabin at ten and a half.”
“Thousand?”
“You bet.”
“What he’s trying to say,” Cam huffed, “is to not get ahead of yourself with those giant legs of yours. You get altitude sickness, and Siena will leave you behind.”
“Factual,” said Siena as the trees cleared. She stepped into a small meadow of alpine buttercups. A brook split the path, the air pungent with the scent of wild mint and alliums.
Decades ago, she’d held her mother’s hand on a footbridge in the high meadows of Yosemite. Siena remembered little, only the smell of the air and the sparkle of clear, cold water rushing beneath their feet. She imagined her mother here, sitting near the bank, dipping her bare feet in the brook, and daydreaming away an hour.
Siena couldn’t spare such a luxury this early into the hike. But a few more miles and they’d break for water and a snack with the valley beneath them, the sister peaks Agnes, Charlotte, and Lucille on full display. Agnes was their destination, and they’d camp on the mountain in the research cabin owned by CalTech, three thousand feet beneath her summit.
Reaching the brook, Siena employed a few makeshift stepping stones to get across, careful not to slip. Having a wet boot at the start of a fifty-seven-mile hike was a fate worse than death as far as she was concerned.
She hopped off the last rock and hesitated. Before her, the path curved on an incline into a set of switchbacks, and the old man’s voice returned.
Don’t go.
She brushed her fingers across the crescent scars on the inside of her forearm, a permanent mark left by yellowing nails.
Promise me!
“Don’t tell me you’re already tired, Dupont,” said Cam. “I expected more from you.”
Siena shook off the remnants of the memory and turned around. Emmett was right behind her, but Cam was on a stone in the middle of the brook, balancing on one foot like a total jackass.
“Just thinking about Dr. Feyrer,” Siena said.
“Ah.” Cam rested her foot back on the stone. “Well, he’d tell you to hurry up, wouldn’t he? Don’t stray from the path, Siena.”
Emmett shook his head. “God, Cam.”
“I’m serious.” Cam hopped to the next stone. “Look, we’ll pour one out for him when we reach the cabin. That’s what he’d want.”
Siena nodded, her eyes drifting to Isaac, who awkwardly muttered “R-I-P.” Even Emmett laughed then, the levity relieving the ache in Siena’s chest for a moment. Then she looked at the trail along which they’d come and frowned.
There was no trail, only high grass and wildflowers.
She could have sworn the path had cut all the way from the woods to the brook. If she’d been paying better attention, she wouldn’t have led her team tromping carelessly through a habitat.
Emmett pushed past her. “I for one don’t want to be hiking in the dark. Let’s go so we can make camp where we planned.”
Siena gave the meadow a final fleeting glance and turned to follow Emmett.
