Chapter 14
Pre-dawn came chilly but not raining or snowing.
Everything outside the shelter and tarp area was covered in a thin layer of white.
No one was moving, exhausted from the hard hike yesterday and then the late bedtime.
I slid out of my bag and stuffed it in the sack.
Then rolled my pad. Ready to move out in under a minute.
Despite the comradery of the previous evening, I was ready to travel and not particularly in the mood to chat.
I escaped the shelter without waking anyone, Maggs at my side.
The trail was moving more north now, toward North Carolina.
There was going to be more distance in between trailheads/roads as it went farther into the wilderness. Which was fine with me.
I paused at a level spot and did five minutes of kata, just to keep loose, then continued on.
Eventually the sun was up and the thin layer of snow was mostly melted away. It was muddy but not too bad.
I crossed a road and there was a SUV parked, but no sign of people. I went over to it. There was a note taped inside the window listing the trail the owner would be hiking with his family, wife and two kids, a cell phone number and when they expected to be back, which was later today. Smart.
Which is why I wasn’t surprised after an hour or so when I heard laughter echoing from up the trail, high-pitched and unrestrained. Kids.
Maggs’ ears perked up, her tail starting its automatic wag.
I rounded the bend to a cluster of noise: a man and woman in their forties, two kids maybe eight and ten, and a gangly teenager trying to pretend she was too cool for family hiking while simultaneously taking selfies with the scenery.
The younger kids spotted Maggs first.
“Wolf!” the smallest one shrieked but she was already running toward Maggs.
“A dog,” the teen corrected her.
“Emma, wait!” The mother’s voice was automatic, practiced at correcting calmly. “Ask first.”
Emma came to a stop about five feet from us, vibrating with excitement. “Can I pet your dog? Please?”
“Sure. She's friendly.” I gave Maggs the release signal, and she trotted over to the kid like she’d been waiting her whole life for this moment.
Emma dropped to her knees, wrapping her arms around Maggs' neck. “She’s so soft! What's her name?”
“Maggs.”
“Hi Maggs! I’m Emma and this is my brother Tyler and my sister Zoe and my mom and dad and we're hiking to the mountain top and then we’re having a picnic and—”
“Breathe, Em,” the dad said, laughing. He extended his hand to me. “Sorry about the ambush. I’m Rob. This is my wife Sarah, and our walking tornado of children.”
“Max. And she’s fine, really. Maggs loves kids.”
The boy—Tyler—had hung back, eyeing Maggs with the cautious interest of a kid who’d been taught to respect animals. “Is she a German Shepherd?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool. My friend has one. They’re super smart.”
“They are.” I watched Tyler approach more carefully than his sister, letting Maggs sniff his hand before petting her.
The teenager—Zoe—was still on her phone but had drifted closer, clearly interested despite her studied indifference. I was going to have to figure out how to prevent her from including Maggs—and me— in a social media post.
“She’s pretty,” Zoe said.
“Zoe, phone away,” Sarah said tiredly. “We talked about this. Family time.”
“I just want to—”
“Away.”
Zoe sighed with the weight of all teenage suffering but pocketed the phone. When she crouched down to pet Maggs, though, her face softened into something younger.
“She’s really beautiful,” she said quietly, scratching behind Maggs' ears. “You can tell she’s well loved.”
Something about that observation caught me off guard. “Thanks.” I’d always considered my relationship with Maggs in the context of what she gave me. Which was a lot.
“Are you thru-hiking?” Rob asked, eyeing my pack.
“That’s the plan.”
“That’s amazing,” he said and it sounded genuine.
“We’ve always talked about doing something like that.
Maybe when the kids are older.” He looked at his family—Emma still wrapped around Maggs, Tyler examining my trekking poles with interest, Zoe actually smiling.
“Right now, we’re lucky to manage day hikes without someone needing the bathroom or forgetting their water bottle. ”
“I forgot my water bottle,” Tyler admitted.
“I know, buddy,” Sarah said. “That’s why I’m carrying two.” She pulled out a bottle from her pack, handing it to her son. "And before you ask, yes, I packed extra snacks.”
“Can I have some?”
“We just had breakfast an hour ago at the trailhead.”
“But I’m starving.”
Rob caught my eye and grinned. “The glamorous life of family hiking.”
I smiled, but something twisted in my chest. The easy banter.
The practiced routines. The way Sarah automatically knew what everyone needed.
The way Rob’s hand found the small of her back as they talked, casual intimacy worn smooth by years.
It took time to develop all that. It made me realize how Rose and I were just at the beginning of our time together.
“How far are you going?” I asked, trying my sociable Max.
They explained the plan. “Not much farther. About six miles round trip.”
Sarah adjusted Emma's backpack, which had somehow twisted sideways. “It’s our weekend tradition. Pick a trail, pack too many snacks, listen to Tyler complain for the first mile, then watch them run ahead like wild animals.”
“I don’t complain,” Tyler protested. “But it is muddy.”
“Buddy,” Rob said, “you’ve complained about your socks, your shoes, the temperature, and the existence of hills. All in the last twenty minutes.”
“The hills are stupid, though. They should all be downhill.”
Everyone laughed, including Tyler after a moment. I watched them, this unit of people who belonged to each other, who’d built something together over years of weekend hikes and forgotten water bottles.
We chatted a bit more and then next thing I knew, we were moving up the trail, walking together. What the hell?
At least Maggs was happy as the kids took turns throwing a stick ahead on the trail and she chased it down and brought it back.
Tyler peppered me with questions about thru-hiking. How much did my pack weigh? Where did I sleep? Had I seen any bears? What was the coolest thing I’d seen so far?
Emma wanted to know if Maggs ever got tired, if dogs got blisters. Even Zoe asked a few questions, carefully casual, about what it was like to just walk for months. No school, no obligations, just the trail.
“Sounds lonely,” she said.
“Sometimes it is.” I thought about how that had been the point on my last two hikes. To be alone.
“But also kind of peaceful?” Zoe asked. “Like, nobody expecting anything from you?”
I looked at her—this teenager trying so hard to be independent while still walking close enough to her family to bump shoulders occasionally.
We reached the top of a hill, which Rob said was the turn around point for their hike.
There was a break in the trees, exposing a beautiful view to the east. The sun was shining brightly and there was the fog of water evaporating over the hills.
It was much warmer. The kids immediately started scrambling on rocks while Sarah called out warnings about slipping and Rob tried to supervise while also taking photos.
“Zoe, get in the picture!”
“Dad, no—”
“Come on, just one family photo. Please?”
Zoe groaned but moved into frame.
“Max, would you mind?” Rob held out his phone. “Just so I can actually be in one.”
“Sure.” All the while I was thinking about how to refuse them when they offered to take my picture.
I took several shots while they arranged themselves on the rocks. Rob and Sarah in the middle, kids arrayed around them like satellites. Emma made bunny ears behind Tyler's head. Zoe almost smiled. Tyler struck what he probably thought was a cool pose.
“Got it,” I said, handing the phone back.
Rob scrolled through the photos, grinning. “These are great. Thanks.” He showed Sarah, and she laughed at something, probably Emma's face in one of them.
Then he put the phone away and I relaxed.
They spread out a thin blanket and unpacked lunch—sandwiches, chips, fruit, cookies that Emma tried to eat first until Sarah intervened. The organized chaos of a family that had done this a hundred times.
“You hungry?” Sarah asked me. “I always pack way too much.”
“I'm good, thanks.” I really wanted to get going, feeling I was intruding.
“You sure? I’ve got extra sandwiches. Turkey or PB&J?”
“Really, I'm fine.”
But she was already offering a turkey sandwich, adding some chips and an apple.
I took it because refusing seemed rude, and because something about her mom-energy made it impossible to say no.
I sat on a rock a little apart from them, close enough to be included but separate. Watching.
Rob helped Emma open her juice box when she struggled with the straw. Sarah reminded Tyler to eat his apple before his cookies. Zoe complained about something from school, and they both listened, asking questions, taking her seriously even though the problem sounded minor to me.
Maggs had wedged herself between Emma and Tyler, accepting offerings of sandwich crust and attention like tribute.
“Your dog is so good with them,” Sarah observed, watching. “Does she have kids in her life?”
“Not really. Just adults.” As Luke had noted, Rose’s daughter Poppy was probably more mature than me.
“She’d make a great family dog. She’s so patient.”
I thought about Maggs’ previous life. The missions. The darkness. The violence she’d been trained for and executed perfectly. This patient, gentle dog whose trail name was Shadow.
After lunch, the kids wanted to explore more, and Sarah took them down a ravine to a stream to look for salamanders while Rob packed up.
“Sorry if we're keeping you from your hike,” he said. “You probably want to make miles.”