Chapter Three
Cal
I should be irritated.
That is the usual shape of it when someone wanders off a marked trail after dark.
A little paperwork. A firm word about checking the weather and telling someone your route.
A reminder that the Smokies are not a theme park.
Most lost hikers are embarrassed. Some are defensive.
All of them are grateful to be found, and by the time I hike them back to their cars, the whole thing feels like a minor inconvenience that will become a good story.
With Alice, I am not irritated. I’m intrigued.
It’s not just that she’s a gorgeous woman. She’s also creative and spirited and the way her face lit up like the Fourth of July when she started to talk about the fox in her children’s book made her look even more beautiful.
Now she sits at my table with her hands wrapped around a mug of tea, wearing my sweatshirt, telling me about that fox with that same look of absolute joy on her face.
“He lives at the edge of a meadow,” she says. “The other animals have a whole community in the hollow—dens, shared paths, the whole thing. He watches from a distance and tells himself he prefers being alone. That it’s quieter in his den. Less complicated.”
“Does he?” I ask, leaning against the kitchen counter, my own mug warm in my hands. “Prefer it, I mean.”
She thinks about it. I appreciate that. She doesn’t reach for the easy answer.
“I think he’s convinced himself he does,” she says finally. “But there’s a difference between preferring something and just being used to it.”
This fox is sounding a bit too much like… me.
The fire settles into a steady rhythm, wood ticking as it burns, heat spreading slowly through the small room. Outside, the wind moves through the pines in a low, continuous sound I stopped hearing years ago and only notice now because she seems to be listening to it.
I’ve been in this cabin for six weeks. I take the backcountry assignment in September because my supervisor offers it and I don’t have any real reason to say no. The work suits me. The solitude suits me. I wake early, run my patrol routes, eat my meals, sleep well. I’m not unhappy.
I’m not much of anything, I realize now, looking at her.
“What does he learn?” I ask. “The fox.”
“That’s the part I’m stuck on.” She turns the mug in her hands. “My editor says the lesson needs to feel earned, not imposed. She can tell when I’m just telling kids what I think they should hear.”
“Smart editor.”
“Annoyingly so.” The corner of her mouth lifts. “I came out here thinking the mountains will clarify things. Give me some distance from the manuscript.”
“And instead, you got lost in them.”
“And instead, I got lost in them,” she agrees, something wry and self-aware in the way she says it that makes me want to smile.
I push off the counter and pull out the other chair, sitting across from her, close enough to see the firelight move in her eyes.
She watches me the way she probably watches everything, with careful attention that takes things in and turns them over. I get the impression she’s sketching me in her mind, as she probably would on paper if her sketchbook were open.
“Do you ever get lonely out here?” she asks.
“Sometimes,” I say. “But I’ve gotten good at calling it something else.”
“Like what?”
“Solitude. Preference. Choosing the easier thing.” I pause. “I’m not sure there’s much difference between me and your fox.”
She looks at me for a long moment. Something in her expression shifts. Not pity. I wouldn’t welcome that. More like recognition.
“He’s a good fox,” she says. “He just gets a little stuck in his ways.”
I meet a lot of people out here. Hikers, volunteers, the occasional ranger passing through. I’m friendly with most of them. I’m close to none of them, by design or default or some combination I stopped questioning a long time ago. But I’ve never met anyone like this woman before.
I look at her—wind-tangled hair, borrowed sweatshirt, fingers finally warming around a mug—and feel, with a clarity that is almost inconvenient, that I don’t want her to leave in the morning and disappear back into a life I know nothing about.