Chapter 12 #3
“Can I wait until—”
“Because we need to destroy your cell phone after you call.”
“Can’t we just turn it off?”
I think for so many people their cell phone is such an integral part of their lives, they can’t even process the thought of being without it.
I shook my head. “Even when your cell is turned off, what is called a soft power off, it just goes into a low power mode with some of the features still running in the background. That’s why you can use ‘find my phone’ successfully even if the phone is off.
Bluetooth low energy is also active.” I was remembering the briefing I’d received from a tech geek years ago.
I figured things were even worse now. “True off is removing the battery or the sim card, but—” I gestured at her phone—“you can’t do that with new phones unless you break them open.
And your last known location is on record with the last cell tower ping.
Jeremy knows you’re here. So making a call now isn’t an issue. But later? Yeah. He could find you.”
Jenna pulled the piece of paper out of her shirt pocket. “Coral?”
I nodded. “Here. I’ll do it.” I punched in the number.
I was a little surprised Coral answered. I’d expected to leave a message.
“Hello?”
“Coral, it’s Max.”
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” I said. “How’s Pike?”
“Grumpy, but healing. He’s listening to common sense. For now.”
I then explained Jenna’s situation. We made arrangements for her to be picked up at the next spot where a paved road crossed the trail.
Coral asked no questions outside of locking down the specifics of picking her up.
Then I held up a finger to Jenna, to indicate I needed to discuss something else and walked a short distance away, out of earshot.
“When was the last time Pike used his satphone?” I asked her.
“I have no idea,” Coral said. “I’ve never seen him use it. He kept it up at his cabin until he moved in with me. He brought it with him and stuck it in that drawer. Why?”
“Someone’s been monitoring for it all these years. Alerted the moment I turned it on. I think they’re tracking me.”
There were a few seconds of silence. “Any idea who?”
“There’s a woman I spotted. In her thirties or forties. Looks Central or South American. I haven’t had a chance for a face-to-face.”
“Could be connected to Reggie and Marley,” she said.
“What do you know of their background?”
“Just that Pike worked with their parents years ago,” Coral said.
“And just before they were disappeared, they gave the boys’ grandfather Pike’s address in Rocky Start.
I don’t know the exact story, but the grandfather walked away from them while they were sleeping in the desert right after he got them across the border.
I suspect there wasn’t enough water, so he sacrificed himself.
And he was ill. Then they made their way to Rocky Start.
But nothing more than that. I don’t think either of them remember much either. And it’s not something we bring up.”
“Could you get the Ferrells to research what a Punisher skull type tattoo on the back of the hand represents?”
“You know they no longer have access to the NSA database, Max.”
“They can do an AI search.”
“I will ask them.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
“It is no trouble,” Coral said.
I hung up. Then I went back to Jenna and handed her the phone. “Do you want to do the honors?”
We walked to the Trail on the side of the road.
She found a rock and used it to destroy the phone.
She got into it even though her first smash did the job.
She kept pounding until there was just a pile of broken metal and glass left.
We cleaned it up and tossed it in the trash bin by the picnic table.
Then we headed onward.
I didn’t want to stay in the shelter where Jenna and I stopped that evening. But Louis was there, as well as the couple who’d offered to call for help. They welcomed us and I figured it would be rude to set up and hide.
But that didn’t mean I had to join in. Especially as more hikers showed up.
Soon there were well over a dozen, a veritable throng in my opinion.
I could tell that the story of Jenna’s confrontation was already becoming part of trail legend.
It would be interesting to see what it evolved into in a month.
Probably Big Foot and aliens would be thrown in the mix.
Just before dark, I followed the wooden signs to the nearest water source to filter and top off. I paused just before I got there when I heard people talking. Not about Jenna. About someone else I knew.
I gave Maggs the signal to be still and we stood, listening.
There were three hikers, maybe in their twenties, sitting on rocks about twenty feet away, waiting on a hanging filter to make their water safe.
They hadn't noticed me yet—I was partially hidden by the trees, and years of training had made me naturally quiet.
Not that I was trying to eavesdrop. Okay. I was.
“I'm telling you, it’s animal abuse,” one of them said. A guy with a scraggly beard and a pack covered in patches. “That dog can barely walk.”
“I saw them yesterday,” a woman chimed in. She had her hair in two braids and wore colorful gear. “The Lab, right? He could hardly get up. Just laid there wheezing.”
“Boone,” the third hiker said. A younger guy, college-aged maybe. “Sweet dog. But yeah, he looked rough.”
I was trying to figure out if this meant Claire was ahead of me or behind.
“Sweet or not, he shouldn't be out here.” Scraggly beard again. “That woman, she’s basically torturing him. Making him hike when he can barely move. It’s selfish.”
I walked forward, nodded hello to them and knelt next to the stream, taking out my filter. They nodded hello, but they stayed on their topic. Maggs was beside me, and she looked up, sensing my tension.
“She seems nice though,” college kid offered weakly. “Claire is her name.”
“Nice doesn't matter if you’re hurting your dog,” the woman said with certainty. “I wanted to say something, but Travis stopped me.” She nodded at scraggly beard—Travis, apparently. “Said it wasn't our business.”
“It’s not,” Travis agreed. “But it should be. Like, there should be rules about this kind of thing. Dogs have to be fit enough for the trail, same as people.”
Rules, I thought. Always for someone else. It was a rare day someone proposed a rule to keep them from doing something they were doing. Always to stop someone else.
“Did you see how slowly they were moving?” The woman again.
My throat felt tight. I thought about Claire’s face that first morning I’d met her.
The way her hand had hovered over Boone’s hindquarters, ready to help but letting him keep his dignity as long as possible.
And the painkillers. The way Boone had enjoyed sniffing all the new smells he found on the trail.
Better to burn out and fade away. That was something we’d often said in covert ops.
“I don't know,” college kid said. “Maybe she has her reasons.”
“What reason is good enough to make a dying dog climb mountains?” Travis’s voice had an edge now, self-righteous. “If she loves him so much, she should be at home making him comfortable, not dragging him through the wilderness.”
Not if she doesn’t have a home, I thought, but did not say.
“Exactly,” the woman agreed. “It’s like those people who force their dogs to run marathons or whatever. Just because you want to do something doesn’t mean your dog should suffer for it.”
I could walk over. Could tell them they didn't know a damn thing about Claire or Boone or what that dog meant to her. Could explain that Boone was all she had left of her son, that she’d lost everything in a fire, that the dog was the only thing keeping her alive.
That the dog had lost the person most important to him.
But I didn’t.
Because it wasn’t my story to tell. And because part of me—a small, judgmental part—had thought the same thing when I first saw them. Had wondered if Claire was being selfish, if love could justify watching a dog struggle.
Until I’d understood. Until I’d seen that Boone wasn't suffering because Claire was bringing him along.
He was struggling because he was choosing to walk, the same way she was choosing to keep breathing.
They were keeping each other alive, one painful step at a time.
The same way Tom had kept walking until his stump was bleeding and his body was infected.
“Should we report it to a ranger or something?” the woman asked.
I tensed.
“Report what?” College kid sounded uncomfortable now. “That someone’s hiking with an old dog? That’s not illegal.”
“Maybe it should be,” Travis muttered.
I finished filtering my water and stood. All three of them looked over. I didn't say anything. Just nodded once more, the way you do when you pass other hikers, and called Maggs to me.
We walked away with Maggs trotting beside me.
My chest felt tight, anger mixing with something else.
Grief, maybe. Or just the weight of knowing things these hikers didn’t, couldn’t, understand.
They weren’t bad people. They saw an old dog struggling and they felt compassion—wanted to protect him. That was human. That was decent.
They just didn’t see the whole picture. Didn’t see that sometimes love looks like letting someone walk until they can’t anymore.
That sometimes the cruelest thing you can do is take away someone’s last reason to keep going.
I’d debated that with Tom, but he was finally able to see his reality, and he didn’t want to die.
He just wanted to finish something. And I knew he would.
If not in a month, then next year. Or maybe his attitude would change, and he’d realize he didn’t need to walk over two thousand miles to prove something.
I thought about how the people earlier had banded together to help Jenna even without knowing the entire story. And how these people were looking at something else differently, without knowing the full story.
As I got closer to the shelter, I glanced down at Maggs. “You’d tell me, right? If I was being selfish? If this wasn't what you wanted?”
She wagged her tail and pressed against my leg.
“Yeah. That's what I thought.”