THE SEARCH
Leif stuffs his pack with provisions—climbing gear, a radio, a first aid kit, two water bottles, and a couple of energy bars—then swings it onto his shoulders, barely noticing the weight.
Adrenaline pumps hard through his body. He knows the rescue team won’t make it onto the mountains for hours. It’s up to him.
The two German women who reported the sighting are standing by the noticeboard examining the trail map. The mother taps the area where she believes the woman lies. “Here.”
Leif peers at it.
He knows that it took these women five hours to return to the lodge from that area of the mountains. But he is fit, fresh. If the weather conditions aren’t too treacherous up there, he estimates that he can get there in half that time.
He thanks them and turns to leave.
He’s almost at the door when he thinks of something. It’s been nagging at him that these German hikers have only mentioned one woman. No one else has called it in or reported a companion missing. He’s checked the logbook; there are no single hikers out on the trail—at least none who have signed in.
“Are you sure the woman was alone?”
“Yes,” the mother answers.
Then the daughter straightens. “We did see someone earlier, though.”
“That’s right,” her mother says. “It was strange, yes?”
The daughter explains, “Before . . . a younger man. He was alone. Head in his hands.”
Leif feels his pulse spike. “What did he look like?”
The daughter thinks. “Mid-twenties, maybe. He was slim. Dark hair shaved close. He had a tattoo on his neck.”
He swallows. “Of what?”
The girl pauses. Looks to the window as if suddenly understanding something. “The mountain.”
Leif remembers Erik having it done. They’d lost their father two years earlier—a rescue mission in the mountains that went wrong.
His father and Knut had been sent out to find two inexperienced hikers who were a day late returning from a trail.
Unknown to Leif or Knut, they’d canned their hike early, forgetting to sign out of the logbook or tell anyone about their movements.
Out on the mountains, bad weather rolled in, and their father fell, slipping in the scree, sliding down the mountain face, faster and faster.
His body was recovered with thirty-six broken bones.
Erik struggled with his loss. He disappeared for long stretches of time, full of anger and loathing. He hated the mountains. Hated tourist hikers. Hated the whole damn world. He disappeared to Bergen, returning several months later, thin and hollow eyed, a black tattoo on his neck.
Leif was his big brother: it was his job to look after him, to make things better. But Leif didn’t know how. Instead, he threw himself into running the lodge, believing it was the life raft that could stop his family from sinking.
He knows Erik is out there on the Svelle trail—and has a bad feeling about it. He replays the hiker’s description of Erik, alone, head in his hands.
As he looks toward the mountains, Leif thinks: Erik, what have you done?