The Search
Leif scrambles up the next section of mountain.
The elevation has steepened, so he needs both hands to grab on to huge boulders and pull himself up.
For speed, he’s abandoned the trail, which rises more gradually up a series of switchbacks, taking the softer flank of the mountain.
Leif’s route will shave off half an hour—if he doesn’t fall.
Every moment counts, he knows, thinking of the injured woman, unmoving on the ledge. At high elevation, being exposed to the elements for this length of time isn’t good. If her injuries are serious, he may already be too late.
As he pushes on, he can feel the slick of sweat between his T-shirt and pack. He pulls himself up over a large boulder, his sight keen, looking around, keeping alert.
As a child, he’d often come out here with Erik.
They had always been good climbers. It didn’t feel learned, it was just part of their everyday, climbing the mountains because they were there.
Flat ground didn’t exist in their village.
There was nowhere to play football except at the valley bottom, which was level, but dank and shaded most of the summer or covered in snow in winter. So instead, they climbed.
It was only when Leif was an adult and he visited other places in Europe—taking in flat, square gardens and concrete and brick expanses—that he realized he lived somewhere so beautiful.
He knows Erik set out on the Svelle trail three days earlier. Erik didn’t tell him—just did it. Name in the logbook. Pack on his shoulders. Gone. Always flying low to the ground. Secretive. Never letting Leif in.
Maybe I’m no different, Leif thinks.
His gaze lifts to the mountaintop, then he turns as he takes in the ridge, the second peak. He wonders where Erik is now. Recalls the description the German hikers gave. A younger man . . . alone. Head in his hands.
The image makes him recall their father’s funeral—Erik walking out mid-hymn, kicking the door open with his foot.
Leif had found him later, not in the burial ground, but down by the lodge lake where their father used to sit with his morning coffee watching the birds dive for insects.
Erik had been slumped on the bank, head in his hands, fingers digging into his scalp.
Leif had tried to talk, to tell him it would be okay, but he’d started to shout, mouthing off about tourists who had no right to be out there in the mountains, endangering the rescue teams’ lives.
He was angry, hurting, full of blame, wanting to lash out.
If Erik was on the Svelle trail, he should have been hiking out by now. They should’ve passed one another.
Leif scans the landscape once again.
No sign of his brother.